PARACOROTOCA AKERMANI (wARREN). 307 



a beetle was found in the superficial galleries after the first 

 stroke of the trenching tool. The whole nest was rapidly 

 removed in large pieces and transported in a tightly fitting 

 box. Subsequently the material was carefully broken up on 

 white paper in the laboratory and thoroughly examined, but 

 not another beetle could be found, and I much doubt if any 

 were overlooked. Although the adult beetle is scarce and 

 excessively troublesome .to find, the distribution is wide and 

 does not appear to be in any way local. It is estimated that 

 some 400 nests have been more or less carefully examined in 

 this connection and the total number of imago beetles found 

 amounts to 14. Commonly only one beetle is found in a 

 nest. The supposed Paracorotoca larva is at least twenty 

 times more plentiful. There is no clearly marked season, 

 since both larvae and adults have been found in summer and 

 winter on all sides of Pietermaritzburg (altitude 2218 ft.) 

 and also at Durban and Winkle Spruit on the Natal Coast. 



From these facts it may be concluded that the species is 

 scarce, but has a wide distribution ; and if the West African 

 species should prove to be the same it may be probably 

 assumed that akermani occurs wherever Eutermes tri- 

 nerviformis is to be found. 



11. SYSTEMATIC POSITION. 



In a previous paper already cited it has been pointed out 

 that the termitophile faunas of the various termite regions of 

 the world have a striking external similarity, but syste- 

 matically they do not appear to be more closely allied than 

 the ordinary free-living faunas. If such termitophiles had 

 been evolved before the general distribution of termites 

 we might expect with some confidence, owing to the 

 uniformity of the environment of termite nests, that a 

 greater common element would exist throughout the termito- 

 phile faunas of the world. We must therefore suppose that 

 after the main termite genera had arisen and become dis- 

 tributed the termite areas became geographically disconnected, 



