AUTHOR’S ABSTRACT OF THIS PAPER ISSUED 
BY THE BIBLIOGRAPHIC SERVICE, JULY 26 
THE ‘THIRD FORM,’ THE WINGLESS REPRODUCTIVE 
TYPE OF TERMITES: RETICULITERMES AND 
PRORHINOTERMES 
CAROLINE BURLING THOMPSON 
Department of Zoology, Wellesley College 
AND 
THOMAS ELLIOTT SNYDER 
Branch of Forest Entomology, United States Bureau of Entomology 
TWENTY FIGURES AND THREE PLATES (FIGURES TWENTY-ONE TO THIRTY-HIGHT) 
INTRODUCTION 
The most obvious character by which the various reproductive 
castes of termites may be recognized is the presence or absence 
of wings or wing vestiges. In Reticulitermes flavipes Kol., the 
common termite of the northeastern United States, there are 
three reproductive castes, or types, which are distinguishable 
by: 1) the long wings, possessed during the swarming period 
.and afterward remaining only as short stubs, the so-called 
-‘seales;’) 2) the short scale-like wing pads, vestiges of wings; 
3) the absence of either wings or wing pads. The two sterile 
castes of this termite are wholly wingless, and are: 4) the worker, 
recognized also by its grayish abdomen, and, 5) the soldier, 
with its elongated head. These five castes occur in most termites, 
with exceptions according to the family or genus, and all castes 
contain both sexes. 
Of the reproductive castes the winged forms were best known 
to the earlier naturalists, being more conspicuous on account of 
their long wings and habit of swarming, their greater size, and 
darker pigmentation. The smaller lighter colored forms with 
wing vestiges, or without either wings or wing vestiges, lived 
underground or deep within their galleries in wood, and were 
less well known or understood. The greater importance attrib- 
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JOURNAL OF MORPHOLOGY, VOL. 34, NO. 3 
