OBSEliVATlONS ON SOME SOUTH AFRICAN TERMITES. 



383 



tunnels in the soil, carry off the eggs and place them in these 

 prepared recesses; they will also start enclosing the queen in 

 a new cell. The rate of egg-laying is the same as that given 

 for T. natal en sis, and averages two to three per minute. 



The following is the record of egg-laying for a queen 

 immediately after removal from a cell into the observation 

 box. It is complete except for one short break of 20 minutes, 

 when the eggs were lost, and gives a reasonable figure of 

 4000 odd eggs for 24 hours. 



The king is not inflated with body-fat as is the king of 

 natalensis. The queen resembles that of T. latericius, 

 but is not quite so flaccid. The general colour of the body is 

 cream, stippled with reddish brown^ except for the smooth 

 wide bands down the middle of the dorsum and ventrum. 

 The bands are partitioned by the sclerites and ornamented 

 by an irregular broad brown strip. The stipplings of the 

 remainder of the integument take the form of elongate stars 

 arranged along the long axis of the body. Length of largest 

 queen (alive) 90 mm., width of abdomen 24 mm., height 

 9 mm. 



In examining the supplementary gardens of this species it 

 was noticed that the lower portion was concave and somewhat 



