BY WALTER \V. FKOOOATT. 511 



Dr. Packard, who lias given the termites a considerable amount 

 of attention,* in his Entomology for Beginners has erected the 

 Order PlcUyjjtera (insects with wings flat upon the back) in which 

 he places them with the /'soci'ke and Perlidce; but they seem to 

 have little affinity in other respects with the stone-flies and the 

 book-louse. 



If the wings and the tip of the alxlomen be removed from one 

 of the larger termites it might be very easily mistaken for an 

 earwig; and one of our greatest authorities! on the Neuroptera 

 actually described a supposed "wingless termite" from Japan 

 under the name of Ilodoterines japonicus, but in the following- 

 volume appeared a note from the author, stating that upon 

 comparison with a Japanese Forjicula he had found that the 

 supposed termite proved to be a damaged earwig. Dr. Hagen 

 also remarks that in his opinion "the three families Terraitiua, 

 Blattina, and Forjiculina are co-ordinated, and very nearly 

 allied" (p. 139). 



If the wings of the larger termites are compared with those of 

 several of our cockroaches, it will be found that there is a marked 

 resemblance in the form of the parallel nervures with the recurrent 

 foi'ks without an}^ true cross veins running to the exti'emities of 

 the wings in the cockroaches, while in the termites they generally 

 turn downward, but this is not always the case, for in the wings 

 of a very large termite from Northern Australia (for which I 

 propose the name Mastotermes darwiniensis) ancj some species of 

 Calotermes, the parallel veins are stout and thick, forking again 

 and again till they run out at the tips, while in Maalutermes the 

 fore wings have several more stout nervures than the hind pair. 



Termites do not closely resemble any of the lace-winged insects 

 in their perfect state; their metamorphosis is incomplete, as they 

 pass fi'om the egg to the acti\e little larvEe with jjerfect propor- 



* Notes on the external anatomy will be found in Third Report U.S. 

 Entom. Commission, 1883, pp. 326-329. 



+ Dr. Hngen, Proc. Bost. :?oc. of Nat. History, xi. p. 399, 1868. 



