34 B. GEASSl AND A. SANDIAS. 



further reason for regarding the European species as degene- 

 rate. 



6. This question settled, another arises as to which of the 

 two European forms must be considered the more primitive. 

 Evidently Calotermes, for the following reasons : 



(1) The ovary is composed of seven ovarian tubes only, and is 

 therefore in a relatively archiac condition (see my studies on 

 Thysanura) ; 



(2) The soldiers are still furnished with eyes ; 



(3) The colony is headed by individuals which have pos- 

 sessed wings suitable for flight ; 



(4) The art of building is little developed in all species of 

 the genus ; 



(5) The queens of this and other species are relatively small, 

 and therefore resemble the females of other insects; 



(6) There are no workers. 



This aggregate of facts leads one to say positively that 

 Caloterraes is the more primitive, while none of them justifies 

 the supposition that it is a degraded form. 



7. What interpretation is to be placed on the singular fact 

 that all the winged forms of Termes are inexorably lost ? 

 Does this loss take place everywhere, and have not numerous 

 cases occurred in France in which they have been found to 

 establish new nests, as I have shown for Calo termes? 

 These are questions which admit of no definite answer, because 

 the observations made in France by Lespes are not entirely 

 reliable, as Hagen has pointed out. 



Fritz Miiller, whilst denying that the winged forms can 

 possibly found new colonies, and supposing, on the contrary, 

 that they enter orphaned nests, furnishes the clue to the pro- 

 blem by a most original comparison.^ 



He compares the winged forms to perfect flowers, and the 

 substitute nymphs, as he regards them, to cleistogamic flowers. 

 The object of the winged forms, like that of the perfect flowers, 

 would be to render interbreeding difiicult; and that of the 

 substitute nymphs, like the cleistogamic flowers, would be to 

 1 ['Jen. Zeitschr.,' 1873, Beitr. iii, pp. 451—463.] 



