510 



AUSTRALIAN TERMITID.E. 



Part II. 



By Walter W. Froggatt. 



(Plates xxxv.-xxxvi.) 



Classification. 



In dealing with the insects in this remarkable family, we are 

 met with the difficulty that, while standing alone, in several 

 respects they combine the characteristics of two distinct orders; 

 and though classified by most of our leading entomologists among 

 the Neuroptera or Pseudo-Neuroptera, there are almost as valid 

 reasons for placing them in the Orthoptera, while in their social 

 habits they conform to the ants and bees among the Hymenoptera. 

 It is well known that the termites come from a very ancient 

 stock, a great number of species having been found in the fossil 

 state in Eui^ope and America. Brauer* considers that they are 

 highly modified forms of a type which departed little from the 

 ancestral simple Orthoptera. 



In working out the development of a species from Jamaica 

 {Eutermes 7'ippertii) Dr. Knower, in a ^Dreliminary abstract, saysf : 

 " I think that the Termite and those Orthoptera having a super- 

 ficial embryo beginning in a disc which must elongate considerabl}'' 

 to attain the definite number of segments, have most nearly 

 adhered to the typical method of development for arthopods, and 

 probably best represent the development of the ancestral insects." 



* F. Brauer, " .Systematisch-zoologische Stiulien." Sitzuiigsberichte d. 

 Kaiserlichen Akad. d. VVissenscliaften, Wieii. Band xci. 1885. 



+ H. Mc E. Knower, "The Development of the Termite." Johns Hopkins 

 University Circulars. Vol. xv. No. 126, 1896, p. 87- 



