13 



simply taking up their abode under a log or stouo, aud the queen and 

 eggs may be discovered in turning over the sheltering log; others, we find, 

 though constructing 

 veiy elaborate nests 

 in some districts, in 

 other places, though 

 belonging to the same 

 species, simply hide 

 in the fallen wood or 

 burrow underground. 

 Most of the turret 

 nests, which will be 

 described in the notes 

 under the different 

 species, have a well- 

 defined clay wall i>r 

 outer coveiing enclos- 

 ing the true woody 

 nest, and rise directly 

 from the ground ; in 

 the first instance com- 

 menced over a log or 

 stump, which is 

 gradually absorbed 

 into the structure and 

 enveloped in the outer 

 clay covering. 



The aiboreal nests 

 have no clay in their 

 structure when any 

 distance from the 

 ground, but w^hen 

 close have an admixture of earthy particles all through the outer portion. 



Arboreal Nest of the common Pale Eutermes 

 (Eittermes fiimipennis). 



Sampson Vale, Qiieeuslaud. 



The Classification of Termites. 



Most of the earlier entomologists, when treating of white ants, placed 

 them under the order Ncuroptera, or at best formed a sort of halting- 

 ground between the Orthoptcra and the former under the title of Pseudo- 

 Neuropteru. Others have followed Dr. Packard, and included them in 

 hih new order P/'«^;//?^em - flat-winged insects, in which he placed them 

 together with the Psocidcv and Perlidce, with which, except in the shape of 

 the wings, they seem to have very little in common. 



Among the very earliest forms of insect life in the primeval world, 

 insects allied to Neuroptera and Orthoptera seem to have been most 

 prominent, and cockroaches and Avhite ants, so closely allied to present 



