Section D.— ZOOLOGY, PHYSIOLOGY, HYGIENE, 

 AND SANITARY SCIENCE. 



President — Professor E. Warren, D.Sc. 



FRIDAY, JULY ii. 



The President delivered the following address : — 

 TERMITES AND TERMITOPHILES. 



I. Introduction. 



A comparative study of the modifications of structure and 

 habit occurring in the various foreign organisms living as guests 

 or parasites in the nests of termites and ants offers a very 

 fascinating but difficult field of enquiry. In the case of termites 

 the mutual relationships between the foreign organisms and 

 the members of the termite-community have to be judged chiefly 

 from the nature of the modifications of the termitophiles them- 

 selves, and from comparison with myrmecophiles, rather than 

 from actual observation, since termites are less readily main- 

 tained under experimental control than ants, being peculiarly 

 intolerant to light and artficial conditions. 



Our present knowledge of termitophiles is largely due to the 

 indefatigable researches of E. Wasmann, while F. Silvestri, 

 Ivar Tragardh, H. Brauns and others have made important con- 

 tributions to the subject. 



The termitophiles are mainly insects, belonging to various 

 orders, but in addition there are a few Crustacea and other 

 arthropods. 



A detailed comparison of the termitophile faunas of the 

 southern continental land-masses is likely to prove of considerable 

 interest in connection with our notions as to the evolution of 

 the termitophiles, and the problem arises as to whether it is 

 capable of yielding some evidence with regard to the occurrence 

 of land-connections betw^een the continents in past geological 

 periods. Unfortunately our knowledge of these faunas is at 

 present very unequal and incomplete. The termitophiles of 

 Africa, South America, and to a limited extent of India and 

 the Malay Region have been studied mainly by E. Wasmann and 

 F. Silvestri. but those of Australia are very inadequately known. 



II. Distribution of Termites in Space and Time. 



With regard to the present geographical distribution of ter- 

 mites, I have prepared the accompanying table showing the 

 approximate number of species of each genus recorded from the 

 various regions of the world. The table is based on the lists 



