2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 76 



Lameere has noted that it is among wood-boring insects that there 

 is most frequently encountered an association of the two sexes for 

 raising the young. 



Roaches of the genus Dasyponm of North America live in rotten 

 wood, and males and females are found together with the young. 

 According to A. N. Caudell, of the U. S. National Museum, in the 

 case of roaches in the genera Salganca and Panestehia, a break often 

 occurs following in general the anal sulcus at the base of the wing, 

 as at the humeral suture of termites, where the wing breaks off after 

 the colonizing flight ; in the primitive termites this suture is also 

 often poorly defined. It is also interesting to note that roaches and 

 termites mate in a similar manner. Roaches and termites were 

 probably derived from the same primitive group, the Protoblattoiden 

 of Holmgren, but the termites became more highly specialized. 

 However, the North American roach, Cryptocercus punctulatus 

 Scudd., is found wingless as a wood borer in decayed logs ; it is in 

 the same family as the genera Salganea and Panestehia. 



Even in the most primitive termite, Mastotermes darwiniensis 

 Frogg., the winged form of which is roach-like, social life has " re- 

 sulted " in a soldier form which is much more specialized than would 

 be expected. The most primitive and largest species of Kalotermes 

 (occidentis Walker of North America), like all the other lower ter- 

 mites of the family Kalotermitidae, has not gone so far in its social 

 adaptation, namely the subdivision' of labor and caste formation, 

 that more than one neuter form exists — a soldier in which vestigial 

 wings are always present (pi. 3, fig. i). Indeed Holmgren estab- 

 lished a new genus, Pterotermes, for this termite. In many other 

 species of Kalotermes and Kalotermitidae, vestigial wings occur on 

 soldiers, but only occasionally. 



In Parandra the eggs are inserted in the solid wood close together 

 and I have observed that adults often mature and mate in wood 

 underground in the bases of telephone poles, etc., without coming 

 above ground and flying about before copulation. The adults are 

 shy and shun the light when found in the open. 



Micromalthus debilis Lee. is a remarkable wood-boring insect 

 with a complex life cycle; the first stage larvae are found in wood 

 in a semi-gregarious condition. Pgedogenesis undoubtedly enables 

 this insect to continue to live in this semi-social state even in wood 

 below ground independent of the usual flight of winged forms 

 before mating. 



Species of Zorotypus, in the order Zoraptera of Silvestri are gre- 

 garious, and these very active little insects live under conditions very 



