CONSTITUTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF TERMITES. 5 



their eggs and young with them. Consequently many trees 

 which contain a brood are devoid of complementary queens. 



5. A trunk containing a numerous population but no queens 

 is cut down and removed a certain distance away. The colony, 

 finding itself orphaned, at once sets to work to rear substitute 

 royal forms. The same thing happens when the comple- 

 mentary queens are killed ; and if a few only are destroyed, 

 a few are formed. 



All these experiments were begun from November to Feb- 

 ruary, and I did not search for the substitute queens till ten 

 months later. In a single case I began the experiment at the 

 end of March, and looked for substitutes in June ; instead of 

 the usual kind I found partially infuscate forms with torn 

 wings, such as I have previously described as originating from 

 imagos, which are still white, and as yet incapable of flight. 



I have met with similar examples on various other occasions, 

 when my knowledge of Termitidse was still too imperfect to 

 allow me to complete the observations then made.^ 



Corollaries. — Termite societies inhabiting trees devoid 

 of complementary or substitute forms, either developed or in 

 process of development, are certainly in connection with 

 colonies in other trees which contain such forms. So far is 

 this true that, if the former are removed to a distance from 

 the latter, they at once set themselves to rear complementary 

 or substitute examples. The insects are therefore fully aware 

 when they have royal forms at hand, and regulate themselves 

 accordingly. Complementary queens are only found in nature 

 in one out of every fifteen or twenty trees infested with 

 Termites ; and it must be recollected in connection with this 

 fact that the inhabitants of a trunk destitute of such queens 

 bestir themselves to form them whenever the means of com- 

 munication with the parent nest containing them are in- 

 terrupted by distance or other inconveniences, or whenever 

 they think fit to do so. 



It will consequently be seen that there actually exists a 



1 Since this work was written I have been able to establish four other 

 cases altogether similar to the one described above. 



