BIOLOGY OF THE TERMITES OF THE EASTERN UNITED STATES. 55 
Mr. Louis H. Joutel,* of New York City, found a number of ferti- 
lized, egg-laying neotemic queens occupying the same cell, 9 in one 
colony and 14 in another. The number varies with the colony, as 
has since been ascertained, and many neoteinic royal individuals may 
be present in a small colony, where they would be more needful. Mr. 
Joutel spent several years in the study of termites, and in correspond- 
ence with the writer states that on two separate occasions he has 
found true queens—the first shortly after the finding, in 1893, of the 
above-mentioned neoteinic queens. This would be the earliest record 
of the finding of a true queen of flavipes in this country. He further 
states that on a later occasion he found two true queens at Peekskill, 
N. Y., on the same day, July 14, under about the same conditions. 
The queens were located in a ‘“* * * dead hickory stump, about 
12 inches diameter, and were in the upper part of the tunnels among 
the workers. There was nothing to suggest a queen cell and no eggs 
to be found, although I looked over them carefully. They were found 
in stumps about 20 to 30 feet apart.” In commenting on a statement 
made by the writer that a true queen was inactive in a burrow 
when discovered, Mr. Joutel states: ‘‘The three [true queens] that I 
found were very active, and while they did not move quite as fast as 
the larve [workers], it was due only to their size.”” Mr. Joutel is quite 
right, as I have since found out, and the instance cited was probably 
due to the queen being caught in a burrow too narrow for her dis- 
tended abdomen, in trying to escape, rather than being confined in a 
cell the entrance to which was narrower than the size of her abdomen. 
While Mr. Joutel was the first actually to find a true queen, Mr. C. 
Schaeffer,” of Brooklyn, N. Y., was the first to record the finding of a 
fertilized, true queen of flavipes, at Moshulu, N. Y., July 16, 1902. 
He has kindly loaned the specimen to me for study. This queen is 
approximately 8 millimeters in length, the abdominal tergites and 
sternites not being widely separated, is markedly pubescent, and the 
antenne are mutilated. 
In describing the true queens which he found, Mr. Joutel states 
that they resembled the queen that Mr. Schaeffer found. He fur- . 
ther states, “* * * they were all apparently broader than the 
one you figure in relation to its length. The heavy chitinized parts 
looked lke little dots on the surface and did not take up as much 
space in relation to the rest of the surface as those parts do in the one 
you figure. [True, in living specimens.] The first one had its 
antenne complete; of the other two, one had two segments missing 
on one antenna and the other had three segments wanting— 

a Loe. cit. 
6 Snyder, T.E. Record of the finding of a true queen of Fermes flavipes Kol. Proc. 
Ent. Soc., Wash., v. 14, no. 2, p. 107-108, June 19, 1912. 
62896°—Bull. 94, pt 2—15——4 
