BY G. F. HILL. 91 



Just below the surface, and opening off the tunnel used as an 

 exit, there is an elongate, oval chamber which, like similar ones 

 deeper down, will be found, after harvesting operations, to be 

 full of short lengths of grass, etc. The lower chambers are 

 generally larger than those near the surface, but all are very 

 irregular in size and shape, varying, in the lower ones, from 6 to 

 10 mm., from floor to roof, and from 30 to 60 mm. across. The 

 passages connecting them are greatly constricted for a short 

 distance, and neither the passages nor the chambers are coated 

 with alimentary rejectamenta, such as is to be found in the 

 tunnels of Mastotermes. Certain chambers, either near the 

 surface or deeper down, are used for the reception of waste- 

 products, and such portions of the dead as are not used for food. 

 Most of the chambers are from 1|^ to 6 inches below the surface, 

 rarely are they deeper than 1 2 inches. There appears to be no 

 regular "nursery." The eggs are carried by the workers to any 

 of the large flat chambers, and there deposited in little heaps. 

 Larvae and nymphs are found in all the passages and galleries. 



The eggs are yellowish-white, semitransparent, convex on one 

 side, concave on the other, and bluntly rounded at the ends. 

 They measure 0'03 in length by 0*01 mm. in width, and have 

 been taken in December, January, and February. 



Loc. — Darwin, Stapleton, Brock's Creek, N.T. 



Termes Turneri, Froggatt. 



Froggatt, op. cit., 1897, p.736. 



This would appear to be an uncommon species in the northern 

 portion of the Territory, since only two small communities have 

 come under the writer's notice. 



The first was taken at Stapleton (31/12/12) in a few small 

 galleries in the basal portion of the wall of a termitarium of 

 Coptotermes acinaci/ormis, and comprised a few soldiers, workers, 

 and winged forms. The queen was probably destroyed or lost in 

 the fall of earth. The second community was taken a, few days 

 later, in the same locality, in portion of a deserted termitarium 

 of Termes sp., near ferox. In both cases, the winged forms 

 greatly outnumbered the workers and soldiers. 



