202 NATURE STUDY. 



ble that an insect of the size of the termite could find in- 

 gress. 



When the vault was built, it was sheathed with white 

 pine boards from sapling trees. Some of these boards are 

 stained in a way which indicates that the logs from which 

 they were sawed had lain exposed throughout a summer, 

 probably in a mill yard. When discovered, the termites 

 were numerous in these sap-stained boards, from which 

 they had found their way to the books and papers on the 

 shelves. The brick walls of the vault appeared to have no 

 cracks through which the insects might have entered, and 

 it is probable that they, or a few ancestors, were in the logs 

 before they were sawed into boards. An obvious objection 

 to this supposition, however, is the slow rate of increase 

 for at least the first four years ; but this might, perhaps, 

 be met by the assumption that for a time reproduction had 

 been by supplementary queens, in place of the much more 

 prolific true queen. If, in course of time, a true queen 

 developed, there would then be such a rapid increase as, 

 in this case, first attracted attention last March. The 

 vault is situated in a basement from which a business 

 block is heated, and the steady warmth throughout the 

 winter undoubtedly stimulated the termites to a degree of 

 activit}^ unusual with them in northern latitudes. 



The special interest in the damage done b}^ these insects 

 in Manchester is due to the fact that this locality must be 

 very near the northern limit of the range of this species 

 ( Termes JJavipes) . Small colonies are somewhat numerous 

 about Manchester, under stones and rotting logs in waste 

 places, but I have not been able to learn of them farther 

 north than Hooksett, the next town above Manchester in 

 the Merrimack valley. I am not aware that any injury by 

 them has heretofore been reported in New England. 



Dr. Iv. O. Howard, Chief of the Division of Entomology 



