Feo CON al oie 
VOL. XXV OCTOBER, 1918 No. 5 
A EUROPEAN TERMITE RETICULOTERMES LUCI- 
FUGUS ROSSI IN THE VICINITY OF BOSTON. 
By Rosert James Dosson. 
Bussey Institution, Harvard University. 
In early May of the present year (1918) I was collecting termites 
in the vicinity of Boston in order to carry out some experiments at 
the Bussey Institution. Only one species of termites has been 
known to occur in this part of the country north of New Jersey, 
viz., Reticulotermes flavipes Kollar. I was surprised therefore 
during these collecting trips to find a few colonies of R. lucifugus, 
one of the common European termites of the Mediterranean 
region. This species has not been found in North America before, 
though at least two of our Western species have been confused 
with it. One of these occurs in California and another in Texas 
and also in Kansas. 
There are not yet sufficient data on which to base a theory of its 
occurrence here. It wou'd be less remarkable had it been found 
further south where the climate differs less from that of its home 
in Southern Europe. The fact that it has not appeared in earlier 
collections would indicate that it is not widely distributed, and it 
is entirely possible that it has been accidentally introduced from 
Europe. Kellogg! records an instance of scores of termites of this 
species being found in the boards of some packing cases received 
at Stanford University from Germany. 
The size of the colonies I have found, and the fact that one of 
them at least was headed by a large queen give evidence that they 
have been here for some years. On a wooded hillside in the out- 
skirts of Boston where I found what appear to be several distinct 
colonies of R. lucifugus the species occurs side by side with R. 
flavipes and in approximately the same abundance. I have found 
the galleries of the two species within a few inches of each other. 
1Kellogg, Vernon L., American Insects, 1908, p. 108. 
