BY WALTER W. FROGGATT. 435 



Many of the Eutermes nests are built in trees, sometimes upon 

 a dead tree, the dead branch of a live one, the rough-barked 

 Eucaly23t being generally chosen, as the galleries coming up from 

 the ground are skilfully hidden in the inequalities of the bark, 

 though when they do come to a bare surface they go straight 

 ahead, forming a regular uniform cohered way. Not only is there 

 a constant stream of workers and soldiers passing up and down 

 the galleries, but the enormous amount of life one of these 

 arboreal nests contains is something astounding; there seem to 

 be more termites than nest material when they are first Ijroken 

 open. 



The dark, almost black, colour of the nests makes them very 

 conspicuous objects on a bare leafless tree. Arboreal-nesting 

 species of this genus have been described from many parts of the 

 world; in Brazil the nests are known as " negro heads." Moseley* 

 gives a description of them at St. Thomas (Virgin Islands) and 

 states that they are often as big as a small hogshead. Hubbardf 

 has worked up the arljoreal species of Jamaica; and Miss Ormerodj 

 has noted from British Guinea large spherical nests encircling 

 the branches of trees. 



In the third group of termites I include those that do not build 

 mound nests, but live in communities under logs, stones, and all 

 sorts of dead wood and timber. A number of our species 

 never appear to build any well-defined nest, but like wandering 

 gypsies, pitch their settlement in any suitable place, like the 

 common American species, Ternies Jiavipes, the real nest and 

 queen of which are yet unknown. While some of them form 

 regular little families distinct in themselves, others ai^e predatory 

 bands which find a suitable place to form an encampment and 

 devour everything they can find; tKe}^ are frequently connected 

 with a large nest at some distance, to which they all retreat when 

 disturbed. 



* H. N. Moseley. Notes by a Naturalist on H.M.8. Challenger, p. 12, 

 n. ed. 1892. 



t H. G. Subbard. Proc. Bost. Soc. xix. p. 267, 1878. 



t Miss E. A. Ormerod. Proc. Ent. Soc. 1881. 

 c c 



