NOTES ON TERMITES FROM CEYLON. 113 



Dr. Bugnion, for instance, records a nest built in a corner 

 under the roof of his laboratory, and Mr. Fetch has observed 

 the building of another nest under a glass bell -jar covering a 

 decayed stump of wood in the verandah of his office. 



Foraging is not undertaken every night. There are intervals 

 of inactivity, though sometimes expeditions may be sent out 

 for several consecutive nights. The inmates of one nest, that 

 used to cross the road leading to the laboratories at Peradeniya, 

 were not to be seen for about a week, when they re-appeared. 

 On this occasion I could see how they made their way to the 

 tree upon which they used to feed. The old track had been 

 obliterated by road sweepers and heavy rain when I observed 

 the termites starting for their old feeding grounds one 

 afternoon at 6 o'clock. The front party went forward rather 

 uncertainly, advancing very slowly and evidently recon- 

 noitering. Some of them went a long way down the road, 

 which led them far from the tree ; but by the following- 

 morning they had found the short cut from one tree to the 

 other, by more or less the same path they had used before. 



The exit of the foraging party from the nest begins usually 

 between 5 and 6 p.m., and in the morning one can see a large 

 trail returning to the nest, most of the workers carrying in 

 their mandibles a morsel several times larger than their own 

 heads, while others are still at work foraging. I have watched 

 them through a Zeiss binocular microscope and could plainly 

 see how they detached the lichens from the bark. I have 

 also seen them gathering algse from bricks on the road. I 

 have never observed one of the gatherers pass over its harvest 

 to another individual which carried it to the nest, as stated by 

 Escherich ; nor have I seen a soldier fed by a worker. Once 

 I saw two workers, neither of which had any morsel in its 

 mandibles, touching each other with their mouth-parts. 

 Another time the same procedure was gone through by a 

 worker and a soldier, but apparently no feeding was done. 

 Anyhow, these two cases out of thousands cannot be the rule, 

 and I do not think that aity feeding takes place during foraging. 

 But I have observed, on several occasions, the following scene. 

 A worker with a large bundle in its mouth was standing amidst 

 the crowd when several other workers came up to it and tore 



Q 6(5)13 



