242 CLAUDE FULLER. 



species, it seems to me highly probable that the members of 

 communities which have not reached the stage of reproduc- 

 tivity, represented by the throwing off of images with more 

 or less regularity, are below the average size of the species. 

 These are to be i-egarded as juvenile communities which do 

 not produce images because their numbers are not strong 

 enough to feed to maturity individuals capable of maintaining 

 an independent existence for a considerable period, and being, 

 at the same time, capable of nourishing to an adult condition 

 their immediate progeny upon the food-reserve acquired 

 during their own development. 



Nanism is seen at its highest expression in the first-born of 

 a pair of termites. These reduced forms are so many abridge- 

 ments of those of the community from which their parents 

 sprang. They arrive at an adult condition upon a peculiar 

 and limited diet, purely salivary, and this results in the 

 dwarfing of the creature as a whole and in the reduction of 

 the number of joints of its antennte. From the study of both 

 incipient and juvenile communities it becomes very apparent 

 that nutrition has a considerable influence upon size and upon 

 antennal developments. In a wide sense nutrition may be 

 said to account for major and minor castes and for inter- 

 grading forms. 



Of juvenile communities, those which are the most fre- 

 quently observed belong to the genus Eutermes; locally, 

 to the sub-genus Trinervitermes. Unfortunately for the 

 classification of termites many Eutermes construct mounds 

 early in their history — mounds easily explored by the itinerant 

 collector. This, taken together with the failure of taxonomists 

 to recognise nanism and its effect upon the antennae, has led 

 to the erection of a number of pseudo-species in this group. 



From the evidence I have been able to gather, communi- 

 ties of fungus-growers are large and populous before a mound 

 is built up above the nest-site. That they are dwarfs early in 

 their history may be gathered from the smallness of the first 

 offspring of mated couples. The disparity between such off- 

 spring of Odontotermes badius and the membei's of a 



