OBSERVATCONS OX SOME SOUTH AFRICAN TERMITES. 395 



sufficiently rare to be conspicuous when it did occur. The 

 chief feature to be noticed in the sketch is that, at every few 

 inches, the gallery opens out into well-defined chambers 

 [a, a, a). All of these chambers are elongated; and, being 

 vaulted and having flat floors, they much resemble the 

 ■queen-cells of other termites (vulgaris, latericius, etc.) ; 

 ordinarily they are 1 to Ij in. long, one half inch wide and 

 a quarter to a third of an inch high. Some of them, even 

 those within a few inches of the surface, contained young 

 insects which were attended by workers. Such young being 

 far removed from the fungus-gardens may have been under- 

 going differential feeding ; but no evidence on that point 

 was secured. Some of these chambers are junctions from 

 which lateral galleries, or galleries leading to the fungus- 

 gai'den cavities, go out. The majority, however, have but 

 one entrance and one exit — the main down-shaft entering 

 above at one end and continuing its course thiTjugh a hole in 

 the floor at the opposite end of the cavity. These elongated 

 cavities are orientated in various directions and occur in the 

 compressed nests found in mounds. The second striking 

 feature is the little pocket-caverns which subtend the de- 

 scending gallery {h, h, h) and open directly into it ; they are 

 domed, have circular flat Boors and seem to be rest-houses. 

 These are the lenticular cells of Haviland. A further feature 

 are slight fusiform enlargements (c, c) which occur wherever 

 the short, radiating and always descending galleries to the 

 fungus-cavities join the down-shaft, or where lateral galleries 

 join it. 



Among the irregular features are cavities such as d, d, and 

 the cavities e, e ; the latter are, however, regarded as the 

 beginning of excavations for the accommodation of fungus- 

 beds. 



The fungus-garden cavities are placed around the down 

 shaft (PI. XXIX, fig. 9,/, and PI. XXXI, fig. 4), usually two 

 to three inches away from it, or even more. These cavities 

 are, as a rule, globular, although the floors generally tend to 

 be flattened. With them the whole system looks like nothing 



VOL. 3, PART 2. 27 



