BY HENRY TRYON. 12! 
also bone-eating insects, which a judicial entomologist should have 
regard to, and in this category must be included the ‘“ white ants” 
which have suggested this note. ‘Termites are accounted the most 
destructive insects in existence, with what justice we need not stop 
to inquire ; but howsoever great and how variously directed their 
depredations, the writer has never before heard of their consuming 
bone, much less man’s bone. ‘The insects before you represent 
‘““white ants” addicted to this habit, and are examples of the 
following of the several forms of individuals usually met with in 
the termites’ nests, namely :—(1) The larve not fitted for repro- 
duction ; (2) the soldiers; (3) the workers; (4) the larval forms 
fitted for reproduction; and (5) the ‘‘nymphs of the first and 
second classes.”* It will thus be seen that we have here nearly all 
the forms usually found in a complete termitarium, especially at this 
time of the vear, and those who are familiar with Fritz Muller’s 
investigations into the habits of the termites of Brazil will re- 
member that the nymphs of the second class never leave the nest, 
and so will readily conclude that these specimens if found together, 
as was the case, must have lived in or near a termitarium, and have 
formed a component part of the community inhabiting it; or, in 
other words, a colony of white ants must have established itself in 
the immediate spot whence these exhibits were procured. Now, 
this was within the cavity of the skull, and from the long bones 
of a human skeleton—that of an aged female aboriginal—found 
in the bush near the Junction Hotel, Brisbane. 
These termites had eaten circuitous grooves into the inner sur- 
face of the calvaria—the only portion of the cranium which 
remained—and these grooves were in several instances so deep as 
in several places to involve the outer table of the skull, which they 
pierced so as to occasion the presence of numerous irregular holes 
of various size, occurring not only on the anterior regions, but on 
the sides and behind, in fact all over the skull. From the appear- 
ance of the calvaria, it was very evident that the remaining portions 
of the skull had already been destroyed by the termites. Within 
that portion of the cavity which still remained, and in juxtaposition 
to the bone itself, was the peculiar substance usually composing 
termites’ nests, and ina similar cellular condition. ‘The white ants 
had also eaten into the heads of the long bones. 
* In the absence of winged forms it were hazardous to express an opinion 
as to the species which these insects represent ; but notwithstanding this 
uncertainty which attends their reference to one of the described species it 
is probable that they belong to Hagen’s Eutermes fumipennis. 
