296 B. GRASSI AND A. SANDIAS. 
are very scarce; they begin to appear in December, and 
become abundant in January and February. The nymphs 
accomplish the imaginal transformation by April or May. 
But the fact that examples with the characteristics of those 
recently born are to be met with in spring, though the nest 
may have contained no eggs since the month of September, 
shows that the development of the earliest stages is arrested 
during the winter, as in Calotermes. Termes, it must be 
noted, requires a less degree of moisture than Calotermes, 
and can therefore live with comfort in dry and seasoned timber, 
and in desiccated portions of trees, &c. 
During the warmer months they bury themselves deeper and 
deeper in dead roots, so that their nests appear to be depleted, 
and it becomes difficult to procure complementary royal forms, 
eggs, new-born larve, &c., without digging to a great depth. 
Termes and Calotermes often share the same tree, but 
the former habitually confines itself to the dead and drier, the 
latter to the moister parts. But it will readily be understood 
that there is no sharp demarcation between these two regions, 
and therefore none between the two colonies. 
2. Number of Individuals in the Colony. 
It is practically impossible to make any accurate estimate 
of the limits of a nest of Termes, as will be seen later. How- 
ever, a single tree, which certainly does not harbour more 
than one nest, will contain at times as much as a litre of Ter- 
mites. Asa rule, the offspring of one nest extends to several 
trees, and the population of a single colony may therefore be 
reckoned as upwards of two litres—that is to say, very many 
thousand individuals. 
3. The Different Castes (Plate 17). 
The society of Termes lucifugus differs widely from that 
of Calotermes, or of such other Termitidze as have hitherto 
been adequately studied. 
Its characteristic feature is the invariable absence of a true 
