53? JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XI. 



memoir he appears scarcely to have made up his mind on the point ;' 

 but in a footnote appended to the English translation he puts forward the' 

 supposition previously advanced by him in the case of bees, that it is 

 to be interpreted by the exceptional occurrence of soldiers and workers 

 capable of oviposition. This view is supported by the discovery of a 

 " nymph-soldier " with well-developed ovarian tubes. Much more evi- 

 dence is still required as to the occasional existence of fertile soldiers and 

 workers, especially in species, if such exist, in which the caste distinctions 

 are still incipient. If it can be shown that the evolution of caste charac- 

 ters is in any way anterior to the loss of fertility, the difficulties of inter- 

 pretation will disappear ; at present the evidence points to the fact that 

 owing to qualitative changes in nutrition, rather than simple mal-nutrition, 

 an atrophy of the sexual organs i3 set up which is correlated with a 

 hypertrophic modification of other structures, by a deflection, so to speak,' 

 of the nutritive stimulus. 



Many neoteinic forms show no trace of wings. If the termite colony 

 were headed by such forms only, the phenomenon, as Grassi points 

 out, would occasion no surprise, but all valid evidence would be wanting 

 that the species had ever possessed wings. This leads to the admission 

 on his part that there is no proof that all existing wingless insects may 

 not be descended from winged ancestors, and in the absence of such a 

 proof he is led to reject Brauer's division of Insecta into Apterygogenea 

 and Pterygogenea. 



Space forbids any reference to the full account of the social life, habits and 

 instincts of the species which Prof. Grassi has studied Their intelligence, 

 though remarkable, is far inferior to that of ants, and may be profitably 

 contrasted therewith. Whilst referring to this subject, it may be worth while 

 to call the attention of those interested in animal psychology to two lately- 

 published pamphlets on the subject, particularly that on the psychology of 

 ants 1 , by Father "Wasmann, a most careful observer and thorough student of 

 animal intelligence. 



One practical result of Grassi's work requires mention. An isolated group of 

 ten or a dozen Termites, containing any forms which have not began to 

 undergo the atrophic changes induced in the sterile castes, is capable of con- 1 

 verting such forms into reproductive individuals; and the little society, thus 

 started, possesses the power of multiplying into a large colony. 



It is therefore hopeless to attempt the extermination of Termites merely 

 by the destruction of the kings and queens. 



W. F. H. Blandford. 



(The above appeared in Nature?) 



1 " Instinct and Intelligenz im Thierreich," and " Vergleichende Studien uber das Seelenleben der 

 Ainei&en und der.hoaern Thiere," by Erich Wasmann, S.J. (Freiburg, 1897). • ; - 



