340 CLAUDE FULLER. 



female and alighted near to her. Directly the male touches 

 the female the wings of both drop Avith inexplicable sudden- 

 ness, those of the female seeming to fall whilst still being 

 agitated. After this the female leads the way to the earthy 

 the male following close behind. Here they soon burrow into 

 the soil, and there form a cell. Two pairs which burrowed 

 into observation-cells on December 16th had both produced 

 fifteen to twenty eggs eight days later. They were trans- 

 ferred to glass capsules, and on January 2nd had laid a 

 further batch of ten to twelve eggs. Alive May 25th, 1915. 



Termes vulgaris Haviland. — The mating of this species 

 has only come under observation once (Pretoria, December 4th, 

 1914). The departure of the adults from the nest and their 

 mating occurred between the hours of 8 and 10 a.m., imme- 

 diately after a heavy and continuous downpour of rain which 

 had lasted over three hours. The flight took place from a 

 nest in the banks of a stream, and, but for this fact, the nest 

 could not have been located. 



The insects emerged from numerous apertures in the bank 

 and in the surface overlying the site of the nest. Later in 

 the day these were closed and covered with little mounds 

 of soil. From the fungus-garden cavities to the apertures 

 the insects travelled along specially excavated galleries, an 

 inch and a half wide and a quarter of an inch high, driven 

 upwards through the soil so as to form an inclined plane. 

 These galleries are exactly similar to those made for the same 

 purpose by T. latericius, and form another connecting link 

 between these two similar but quite distinct species. 



Upon leaving the nest the adults radiated out in all direc- 

 tions from it, and mating commenced within the first 100 

 yards. The full peripher}' of the flight was not actually 

 determined, but in one direction it extended for more than 

 half a mile. No wind was bloAving at the time, and there 

 was no evidence of an exodus from another nest. Along the- 

 radius of flight observed it must be conceded that all the 

 mating was between insects of like parentage. 



