OBSERVATIONS ON TERMITES IN JAMAICA 199 



to an equal or greater measurement. When such parts are sawn 

 open they present the appearance of old oak wood bored by 

 insects and can be polished like wood of a fine grain. 



This material burns like wood and leaves a white ash. It 

 crumbles under the razor edge and under the microscope appears 

 made up of fragments of vegetable cell-walls much comminuted 

 and not in normal juxtaposition but impregnated with and 

 surrounded by much amorphous dark material. In water much 

 of the brown color dissolves out and more in potash, leaving 

 the material soft. Macerated in potassium chlorate and nitfic 

 acid the nest material falls apart as pieces corresponding in 

 size with the mouthfuls used in arcade building. Each piece 

 is largely a mass of very small fragments of comminuted cell- 

 walls. In the macerated nest material are many yellow setae 

 from the termites. Some of the cell-wall fragments give the 

 cellulose reaction with Schulz's Solution. By pulverizing, weigh- 

 ing and measuring the nest material it was estimated that in a 

 certain nest the ratio of wall material to enclosed air space was 

 about I to 2 ; and each termite w^ould have more than nine times 

 its volume of air and five times its volume of wall material as 

 its individual share. 



Some compound masses of arcades seen, built up one over the 

 other, strengthen the supposition that the nest is of the same 

 general nature as the arcade, but more elaborate in having the 

 food material more comminuted and the anal secretion much 

 more abundant. 



Here again the factors underlying the building of the nest 

 may be thought of as the bringing in of food and the need 

 of disposing of excreta." 



In every nest there was one chamber made with more care 

 or of more definite form than any of the others and this was 

 the place where the " queen " (laying female) was found, if at 

 all. This special chamber is in the oldest part of the nest, at 

 the base or on the side, and is well protected within the densest 

 material, usually. It is easily recognized as having one nearly 

 flat floor 30 to 40 up to 40 by 75 mm. wide and a distinctly 

 arched roof 4 to 7 mm. above the floor. The ceiling may have 

 a number of small rounded holes in it but the floor is all one 

 expanse, but with lines upon it as if it had been reconstructed 

 by the tearing aw^ay of former partitions and levelling of the 



