OBSERVATIONS ON TERMITES IN JAMAICA 215 



after coming close to or in contact with the queen. Winged 

 forms attacked workers and soldiers . Two queens in the same 

 community rested in contact with one another without apparent 

 response but an alien queen seems to have been bitten by a 

 queen. In all cases the attack is apt to be accompanied by 

 defense, but both attack and defense varied much in intensity. 



As above mentioned these fighting responses to aliens were 

 observed partly in the field and partly in laboratory conditions. 

 In the field termites were carried from one nest to another and 

 put on the outside after breaking a hole in the covering layer 

 of the nest. The soldiers that rushed out of the nest ran quickly, 

 in rapidly changing courses, over the surface of the nest but 

 seemed to pay little attention to the aliens which also ran wildly 

 about, but when the workers emerged from the nest they at- 

 tacked the alien soldiers and workers, killing some and dragging 

 others into the nest. Soldiers, however, were seen to point their 

 heads at alien workers and soldiers and this probably meant 

 the discharge of secretion upon the aliens. When many ter- 

 mites, winged forms as well as workers and soldiers of this broken 

 nest were carried to a third nest and dropped onto it after break- 

 ing the outside surface the same attack was made by these 

 inhabitants. The winged forms, however, were little noticed 

 and rapidly entered into the interior of the alien nest or ran 

 into some shaded retreat and came to rest. 



Two communities, hung up by wires side by side and kept 

 within the nest for some days, carried on a wholesale attack 

 and defense, or war, when a stick was placed to connect the 

 two nests. The termites from the larger nest sw^armed along 

 the stick to the smaller nest and met the outcoming aliens in 

 vast numbers. For several days the termites continued to 

 fight on the stick, with many killed dropping off, and then the 

 larger community withdrew to its own nest and the smaller 

 community did not go out far on the bridge. 



When a colony of some thousands of one community was 

 kept in a finger bowl and then allowed to pass by a paper bridge 

 into another like bowl inhabited by a colony from an alien 

 community the invaders fought the aliens at the point of con- 

 tact. Here many did not stop to fight but passed on to explore 

 the new bowl but ultimately the number of contests increased 

 over a larger area. By the next day all the surviving termites 



