MB. G. D. HAyiLA.ND ON TERMITES. 363 



nearly the same ways as the problems of when to flower and how 

 many flowers to produce. 



They fly but feebly, allowing themselves to be carried by the 

 wind, and could scarcely cross more than a mile or two of water. 



The wines are soon shed across a transverse basal line. The 

 method of breaking off the wings is to elevate them ; this will be 

 found effective in dead insects. The live insect uses its legs and 

 abdomen to elevate its wings, or in other cases pushes them 

 against some object ; yet in some cases the live insect will shed 

 all four wings with inexplicable rapidity. Their wings not only 

 prevent their burying themselves and hiding, but on a perfectly 

 level surface are a danger to them, for birds are seen to pick up 

 those with wings in preference to those without. 



At the time of swarming the males and females of the genus 

 Termes pair, the male following the female and often clinging to 

 her abdomeii ; but there are no copulatory organs, and the sexual 

 organs are not at that stage mature. In Termopsis and Galo- 

 termes (pp. 372-373) it seems that the males and females do not 

 run about in pairs. 



In most, if not in all species a pair of termites can found a 

 nest without assistance. Smeathman, however, states that in 

 T. lellicosus such pairs are protected by any soldiers and workers 

 who may find them, and are by them treated as kings and queens. 

 Some observations made by my brother strongly confirm this 

 statement in respect of the fungus-growing species. Those who 

 have not lived in hot climates seem to have difficulty in realizing 

 the extent to which the ground may be permeated by termites. 



The females do not differ from the males in head and thorax, 

 though careful measurements may find the male to be the smaller. 

 The abdomen of the females becomes at the last moult different 

 from that of the males on account of a characteristic change in 

 the ventral plates of the 7th, 8th, and 9th abdominal segments. 

 In all species of the genus Termes the abdomen subsequently 

 swells to many times its original size ; but this swelling is not 

 accompanied by any moulting ; the chitinous plates do not alter, 

 but become separated by the distension of the intervening 

 cuticle. Dorsally and ventrally secondary chitinization occurs in 

 some groups in the cuticle anteriorly to the original chitin plates. 

 In most groups there are present a number of minute lateral 

 thickenings, usually coloured, and bearing each a hair. 



When, as in most species, the queen is enclosed in a royal cell 



