Aug-ust — December — 1SS9. J 



PSYCHE. 



253 



that we discover the Tertnes under- 

 ground between two trees occupied by 

 Termes or also find trees, the dead 

 parts of which are inhabited by Termes 

 without being able to find the slightest 

 sign of a communication with the 

 neighboring nest. 



One easily sees that he only has a 

 partial nest from the fact that the com- 

 plementary queen is found in one of 

 these trees whilst she is wanting in 

 all the others ; all other individuals 

 including the youngest larvae are 

 found in both trees only the latter 

 are in tar greater numbers in the tree in 

 which the complementary queens are 

 found. If we suppose that the above 

 migration from tree A to tree B to have 

 taken place in the month of March then 

 we shall find in April that nymphs of 

 the second form exist in the tree A as 

 well as the tree B and that in August 

 numerous pairs of complementary kings 

 and queens have developed in both trees 

 from these nymphs of the second form. 



In the natural course of time thou- 

 sands of other trees can be infested from 

 the described tree B and thus a whole 

 territory may be invaded from a single 

 colony ; in the same way the Termes 

 colony is immortal and compensates 

 for the great difficulty in the foundation 

 of new colonies. 



However if we take a fragment of a 

 termite nest without a royal pair at a 

 time when the nymphs of the second 

 form have not vet developed or such a 

 fragment in which only some few of the 

 same are to be found and insulate it so 

 thoroughly that no communication w ith 



the mother nest can take place, we shall 

 then see individual Termes more or less 

 numerous 20-30-40 which are still un- 

 differentiated (youngest larv^ae) or young 

 larvae capable of reproduction, that is 

 tf) say provided only with the first ru- 

 diments of the wings, bring forth sup- 

 plementary kings and queens. It is 

 very probable also that the nymphs of 

 the first form can be metamorphosed 

 into supplementary kings and queens, 

 but I could not determine this, however 

 I deny that the workers or soldiers of 

 both of these stages can be changed into 

 supplementary kings and queens. 



The following is another important 

 fact ; in each termite nest in which 

 nymphs of the first form, or white 

 winged ones, are found there are always 

 two or three females to one male. On 

 the other hand one will find at the end 

 of the period of swarming, that is at 

 the time when only a few nests swarm- 

 ing with winged individuals are to be 

 met with, in each one of the nests 

 among these winged ones, either only 

 males or only females, very rarely one 

 finds a male among the females. 



How these occurrences were related to 

 each other during the time of the great- 

 est swarming I was unfortunately un- 

 able to observe, but conjecture that the 

 females were confined to one part of the 

 nest and the males to another part and 

 that they migrated independently of 

 each other and also at two different 

 times. The object of this being to pre- 

 vent the formation of new colonies be- 

 tween close blood relations, a formation 

 which I sometimes obtained by skil- 



