402 Miscellaneous. 



*' Solok," the English "Sooloo," sometimes " Sulo " &c., the Germans 

 chiefly " Sulu ; " and the name has been written in still half a dozen 

 other ways. As the natives on the spot say " Solog," with a soft " s," 

 it may perhaps be recommended to write the word in this manner. 

 Vienna, April 4, 1874. 



Contributions towards the Natural History of the Termites. 

 By Dr. Fritz Mijller. 



In 185G C. Lespes discovered that both the soldiers and the workers 

 of Termes lucifugus of the Landes were represented by male and 

 female individuals with incompletely developed sexual organs. This 

 statement was received with some hesitation by certain naturalists, 

 and especially by Hagen, who sought in vain for these organs in the 

 soldiers of various species of Termes and Hodotermes. M. Fritz 

 Miiller's observations have dispelled the apparent contradictions 

 which rendered this question obscure, and they reveal to us new 

 facts of the highest interest in the history of the Termites. 



At first M. Fritz Miiller was no more fortunate than Hagen in 

 dissecting workers or soldiers belonging to several difi^erent groups 

 of the genus Termes proper. But in the workers and soldiers of the 

 genus Calotermes he found the organization indicated by Lespes ; 

 and he even ascertained that in the soldiers of this group the repro- 

 ductive organs are much less atrophied than in those of Termes 

 lucifugus, and they acquire nearly the same development as in the 

 winged individuals. 



In the soldiers of Calotermes canellw scarcely any external sexual 

 differences are to be found ; the ventral plates of the abdomen in 

 the male and female soldiers are constructed as in the winged males. 

 The reproductive organs of the female soldiers are scarcely distin- 

 guishable from those of the winged females, except by their slightly 

 smaller size and the absence of the seminal receptacle. The con- 

 tents of the tubes present some differences when compared with 

 what is seen in the females. The reproductive organs of the male 

 soldiers are exactly like those of the winged males, the testes alone 

 being a little more slender in form. 



In Calotermes nodnlosus and rur/osus, Hagen, the male are at 

 once distinguished from the female soldiers by the structure of the 

 eighth ventral arch. In the small number of female soldiers of 

 C. nodulosus that he has dissected, the author did not find well 

 characterized ova filling the whole calibre of the ovarian tubes ; but 

 he saw them in nearly all the female soldiers of C. rugosus. 



As regards the organization of the workers of Calotermes, M. 

 MiiUer can say nothing, for the very sufficient reason that in the 

 five or six species of that genus which he has observed in Brazil 

 there are no workers at all. 



Two forms of nymph had often been observed in the colonies of 

 Termites ; but Lespes was the first to study and describe them care- 

 fully in Termes lucifugus. His " nymphs of the first form," larger 

 than the workers and larvae, are recognizable particularly by their 



