MisceUaneous. 4C>3 



large, thick wing-sheaths, marked -svith lines representing veins ; 

 in these the female organs are well developed, the male organs very 

 slightly. Lespes saw these nymphs change into perfect insects 

 from the loth to the 20th May. The " nymphs of the second form," 

 less numerous than the preceding, become larger, owing to the con- 

 siderable increase of the abdomen. In these the male and female 

 organs acquire an enormous volume. Lespes supposed that these 

 nymphs change in August into winged males and females ; but he 

 had made no direct observations upon this point. 



M. F. ^liiller has been led to form a different conception of the 

 functions of these different nymphs. According to him, male and 

 female reproductive individuals exist under two different forms ; 

 some, originating from the " nymphs of the first form," acquire 

 wings and quit the nest, a small number of them surviving and 

 becoming kings and queens : the others, which correspond to the 

 " nymphs of the second form," are destined never to see the light ; 

 they remain apterous, and never quit the nest where they were born. 

 The correctness of this hypothesis, which was put forward some 

 time ago, has been proved by this clever naturalist by direct obser- 

 vation. In examining the central pai't of the nest of a Eutermes, 

 he found it surrounded by a mass of eggs, and ascertained that it 

 did not contain a great royal chamber, but was formed by a sponge- 

 like combination of irregular passages. In these passages were col- 

 lected, in little groups, thirty-one females with short wing-sheaths, 

 from 6 to 8 millims. in length, in the midst of which a male, of 

 nearly the same size, was walking about. This male was a true 

 king, with large eyes ; his wings had been detached, lea\"ing only 

 their basal portions. " Instead of a palace containing a king, living 

 chastely with a mate of his own condition," says the author, " I had 

 before me a harem in which a sultan was throned in the midst of 

 numerous mistresses." 



These females, whose abdomens were agitated bj- undulatory eon- 

 tractions, like those observed in the queens, laid a great number of 

 eggs in the course of a day ; and M. Midler several times witnessed 

 the act of oviposition. 



The complemental females (ErsatzweibcJien), as M. MiiUer calls 

 them, resemble the workers in their general appearance, but they 

 are twice as large. Their rudimentary wings are so small as not to 

 be perceived in most of them at the first glance. In a small number 

 of individuals these organs acquire larger dimensions, coinciding 

 with a greater development of the mcsothorax and metathorax ; 

 they then attain the middle of the second dorsal arch of the abdomen. 

 The head closely resembles that of the workers ; as in the latter, 

 the antennae arc of fourteen joints, whilst the soldiers have thirteen 

 and the winged individuals fifteen. The only difference between 

 the head in these females and in the workers consists in the presence 

 of small rounded eyes, which scarcely project. The abdomen is 

 only moderately inflated. Each ovary, composed of about a dozen 

 ovarian tubes, contains about six mature ova. Fifteen complemen- 

 tal females together did not weigh more than a single queen ; the 



