116 BULLETIN 108, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Parasites. 



FUNGI. 



The species of Reticulitermes are infested by a parasitic fungus. It 

 is not at all rare to find, especially in the worker caste, a narrow 

 grayish band with black scalloped turned-up edges, usually on the 

 dorsum of the abdomen, but sometimes present also on the ventral 

 surface and as plates on the legs. These bands are sometimes present 

 on the abdomen of soldiers, and may occur on the thorax and head 

 of workei-s. It was first thought that these black bands might be 

 healed-over wounds where the insects have bitten one another 

 (pi. 16, fig. 1); later they were attributed to a bacterial or fungous 

 disease, or to both wound and disease. 



These bands occur on workers, soldiers, and second-form repro- 

 ductive females of R. flavipes Kollar in Virginia, Maryland, the Dis- 

 trict of Columbia, and Massachusetts; virginicus Banks in Virginia, 

 Maryland, and the District of Columbia; and a new species from 

 California, in the United States. " At a rough estimate, there is one 

 diseased insect to a hundred healthy insects. 



Specimens so affected were sent in April, 1915, to Dr. Roland 

 Thaxter, of the Gray Herbarium of Harvard Univei-sity, for an 

 opinion as to whether these bands represented diseased tissue. 

 Doctor Thaxter, after an examination of this material, stated that 

 " the spots and bands are due to the growth of a fungus, apparently 

 an imperfect form of a very peculiar ty]3e and not nearly related to 

 any of the parasites of hving insects which I have encountered." 

 Doctor Thaxter requested additional living material so that data on 

 the manner of spore discharge might be obtained, and intends to 

 describe this form, "which seems * * * to be quite new." 



Workers with similar black bands have been found in other parts 

 of the world and in other genera; workers in a colony of Reticuli- 

 termes lucifugus Rossi from Sardinia, in the Mediterranean, were so 

 diseased. They were collected by A. H. Krausse. 



PROTOZOA. 



Parasitic infusoria were described in Termes by Lespes. Termites 

 are infested internally by protozoan parasites. Organisms infesting 

 Reticulitermes {Termes) flavipes have been recorded by Leidy (1877 

 and ISSl) and Porter (1897). 



Protozoa infesting R. {Termes) lucifugus Rossi have been described 

 by Grassi (1893). Kofoid and Swezy (1917) have studied and de- 

 scribed protozoan parasites of termites. 



NEMATODES. 



Lespes (1856) described a nematode which he found living within 

 the hodj oi Reticulitermes { Termes) lucifugus. His description was very 

 short and indefinite. Merrill and Ford (1916) have studied the life 



