BIOLOGY OF THE TERMITES OF THE EASTERN UNITED STATES. 47 
On August 12, 1914, several workers with these bands on the body 
were taken from a colony of flavipes at Falls Church, Va., and placed 
in a small tin box with decayed wood and earth. Normal soldiers 
were also placed in the box. On October 2, 1914, the workers with 
the black bands were still alive and apparently in the same condition; 
the soldiers had no bands. 
Chanvallon, according to Hagen,“ recommends placing arsenic in 
termite nests, and since the insects are cannibals and the dead are 
eaten, a large number can be killed in this manner. 
SITUATION OF THE DIFFERENT FORMS IN THE NEST. 
The reproductive forms are not necessarily to be found in a “‘royal”’ 
cell situated in the more remote parts of the nests, as in tropical 
species, but are usually in the more sound or solid wood (Pl. XII, 
figs. 1, a@and 2). Incolonies recently established by colonizing indi- 
viduals the eggs and young are present in a definite royal cell, where 
they receive the care of the queen. In well-established colonies no 
forms are permanently present with the reproductive forms, and there 
apparently is no well-defined royal cell. 
The royal cell, excavated in decayed wood by the sexed adults 
that have swarmed, is a broad, oval chamber, the entrance to which 
is but slightly larger in diameter than the abdomen of the queen at a 
period 14 months after swarming (Pl. XII, fig. 1, 0). 
Most of the 40 neoteinic reproductive forms found at Falls Church, 
Va., May 27, 1912, were congregated in a single chamber in the 
solid wood of a chestnut slab. This chamber was a broad but shallow 
longitudinal cell in the solid, sound wood. The entrances to this 
chamber were but slightly larger in diameter than the abdomens of 
the fertilized queens. Other neoteinic individuals were found in 
shallow, broad, oval cells in the wood and in earth under the slab 
GEIL, fis. 2)’, 
The nymphs are usually present in the more remote passages of the 
nest, except during the spring, when they are in the outlying channels,? 
where the warmth of the sun will hasten their development. 


a@ Hagen, H. A. Monographie der Termiten. Linnza Entomologica, Bd. 10, 
1855, p. 35. 
b Developing larve, nymphs, or immature adults are normally to be found, tem- 
porarily at least, in that part of the nest where there are the most favorable conditions 
of heat and moisture for their rapid development—changing with the seasons. In 
the spring and autumn these forms occur under the bark on decaying stumps and 
under decaying wood or bark sunken in the ground in open sunny sites, always being 
in the outlying galleries where the warmth will enable more rapid development. 
There are apparently no permanent sites used as “‘nurseries,’’ as is the case in 
tropical species of termites. However, young larvz are seldom found in the main 
unpartitioned runways, but rather in partitioned galleries, where they will. not be — 
disturbed by the activities of the other members of the colony. Often they are in 
broad but shallow unpartitioned galleries in the more sound wood of the interior 
heartwood of logs, etc. 
