166 BULLETIN 108, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



R. claripennis Banks occurs in the United States from Kansas 

 south to Brownsville, Texas, west to Austin (Travis County) and 

 Uvalde, Texas, and east to Beaumont (Jefferson County), Texas. 



H. G. Hubbard, on May 1, 1897, found a few workers and soldiers 

 of R. claripennis in a stick buried in sand near a dry wash ("Rillito"), 

 near Tucson, Arizona. This is the dry river bed passing Tucson, 

 about 4 to 5 miles north of the town. It also occurs in Monterey, 

 Mexico. 



This termite has habits similar to other species of Reticulitermes. 

 It is destructive to telephone poles and the woodwork of buildings, 

 such damage in the vicinity of Brownsville and San Benito, Texas, 

 being severe. Several damaged buildings were examined by the 

 writer in April, 1917. 



SWARMING. 



R. claripennis normally swarms in the spring of the year, although 

 winged adults have been found in colonies in the fall of the year. 

 E. A. Schwarz found adults of this species swarming at San Diego, 

 Texas, on October 25, 1895; other records are Dallas, Texas, April 

 1, 1907 (Pratt), and April 5, 1907 (Cushman); Beaumont, Texas, 

 March 19, 1908 (Tucker); at San Benito, Texas, 20 miles northwest 

 of Brownsville, the o-woier of an infested building stated to the writer 

 on April 25, 1917, that the termites swarmed three times in the fall 

 of 1916 within a few weeks, just as cold weather set in; Uvalde, 

 Texas, swarming on March 14, 1917 (Parman), from near a hotbed 

 in a garden. 



On April 21, 1916, H. Yuasa found sexual adults swarming in the 

 basement of a building at Manhattan, Kansas. 



Winged adults were collected in Monterey, Mexico, September 28, 

 1913 (Crawford). 



R. claripennis Banks has reproductive forms similar to those that 

 occur in colonies of R. jlavipes Kollar and other termites in this 

 genus. 



On April 24, 1917, along the Rio Grande River on a moist wooded 

 bank below Fort Brown, Brownsville, Texas, the writer found a 

 colony of claripennis in the moist and decaying wood of an uprooted 

 stump partially buried in the ground. Hollow places in the log had 

 been filled in with clay and the insects had projected galleries through 

 the clay. Seventeen reproductive forms were found in this large 

 colony, 16 large queens of the second form (with short wing pads), 

 with distended abdomens, and one male or king of the first form 

 (with wing stubs). The largest of the queens was 9^ mm. in leng'th, 

 measured after preserving in alcohol. Tlie abdomen of the king 

 was slightly distended and he was fully as old as the queens. It is 

 very unusual to find reproductive individuals of two different forms 



