OBSERVATIONS ON TERMITES IN JAMAICA 201 



contained nodules aggregating 3000 c. cm. as measured by its 

 displacement of water. One nodule was about 10 x 10 x 10 

 cm. and weighed 450 grams. 



These nodules are dense and like fine-grained wood and may 

 be cut and polished like wood, with little grain, but yet showing 

 a concentric lamination when broken. 



They float in water but are otherwise much like the nest 

 material, though of a very light color; they burn like wood, 

 leaving a white ash. Examining different nests one arrives at 

 the conception that the nodules begin as minute deposits of 

 food material upon the walls of some passages in the older parts 

 of the nest and then are added to little by little till rounded 

 heaps begin to fill up the cavity of the nest there, then the mass 

 is built out into neighboring passages, producing the round, 

 branched nodules a few centimeters long and with branches 

 3-4 mm. thick which are often found forming loose-fitting casts 

 of the passageways here and there. Later these seem to be 

 built into nearly solid masses with botryoidal surfaces and this 

 implies the removal of the walls of the passages filled by the 

 nodule and the filling in of the space thus gained by the nodule 

 material. A heavy round mass 70 mm. thick may result which, 

 when sawed open, is nearly solid, with but few remnants of 

 former walls and on the other hand this mass may lie nearly 

 free in the nest, since the tearing down of walls may precede 

 the growth of the nodule. In cutting open the nest such nodules 

 readily fall out. Many, however, always remain joined to the 

 walls of the passages and sometimes walls may be grown in and 

 included in the outer parts of the nodule. 



Some nodules come to have nearly smooth curved surfaces 

 and no indication of being conglomerated from the contents of 

 small passages. Such large globes, 100 mm. in diameter or 

 more, are fastened to the walls of the nest only on one face 

 and from this the termites gain entrance into the interior of 

 the nodule when they use it as food. The termites eating out 

 the inner parts of the nodule, leave a mere shell which suggests 

 a woody fungus and is of brighter color on the inner concave 

 face where roughened by the nibbling jaws of the termites. 



Hubbard states that the young eat these nodules. In cap- 

 tivity the adults were seen to eat the nodules readily, and it 

 was not determined how. the young are fed. 



