256 Journal New York Entomological Society. [^'°'- ^i-'^- 



A QUIESCENT STAGE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF 

 TERMES FLAVIPES KOLLAR/ 



By E. H. Strickland, 

 Carnegie Scholar in Economic Entomology. Boston. Mass. 



(With Plate IX.) 



During the early spring of the present year Professor W. M. 

 Wheeler, of Harvard University, very kindly gave me some specimens 

 of an apparently undescribed stage in the development of the imagines 

 of our common white ant, Tcrmcs flavipes, which he had taken the 

 previous year from several colonies at Ellisville, Mass.. just prior 

 to the swarming period. These individuals were, he noticed, very 

 sluggish and unable to escape, as did the normal forms, when the 

 colony was opened up. They were also conspicuous, owing to the 

 fact that the wings were carried at some distance from the body as 

 shown in Figs. 4, 5, and 6. 



On Professor Wheeler's advice I examined nests this spring in 

 the neighborhood of Boston in order to see whether this was a normal 

 condition, and with his help I have been enabled to bring together the 

 following facts. 



The colonies of white ants first began to show activity toward the 

 latter part of March and at this time consisted of numerous workers 

 and nymphs with a smaller number of soldiers and complementary 

 royal forms. The nymphs were then quite normal, and the wings 

 were folded over the dorsal portion of the body in the usual position. 



The colonies were kept under observation from time to time in 

 order that specimens of maturing nymphs might be taken as soon as 

 the first adults began to appear. In 1910 adults were first taken on 

 April 20 and nymphs were still plentiful in material collected on 

 April 24. This year however everything was very late and no adults 

 were seen until May 6 when a number of freshly emerged imagines 

 were found in a large colony. On the following day I intended to 

 collect a large number of nymphs from various colonies that I might 



' Contributions from the Entomological Laboratory of the Bu.ssey Institu- 

 tion, Harvard University. No. 49. 



