TERMITES IN THE UNITED STATES. 11 



virginicus, varying with the season, or about one and one-half months 

 after the swarming. Usually only G to 12 eggs compose the first 

 batch; they are deposited in a cluster in the royal cell and are care- 

 fully tended. The eggs begin to hatch in about 10 days after they 

 are laid. 



Most larva? of the first brood develop to workers and a few to sol- 

 diers. While the recently hatched young are active they are de- 

 pendent on the care of the parents for food. During the develop- 

 ment of the first brood the male continues to share the cell with the 

 female and both are active. The abdomen of the queen at this time is 

 not markedly distended. Egg laying ceases after the first batch is 

 laid and is not resumed until the first brood of young is mature, i. e., 

 about six months after the first eggs were laid. Copulation and egg 

 laying occur at shorter intervals and more frequently from now on 

 and the abdomen of the queen gradually enlarges, eventually be- 

 coming greatly distended through constant care and feeding by the 

 workers and the enormous development of the ovaries. These queens 

 never reach the size attained by species in the Tropics. 



The rate of egg laying and development of the young and active 

 queen of this normal type is slow and the new colony is small. Even 

 after the rearing of the first brood the increase in numbers is not 

 rapid. The capacity for egg laying becomes gradually increased as 

 the abdomen enlarges, but queens of these species (Leucotermes) 

 never entirely lose the power of locomotion. An isolated, fully de- 

 veloped queen of flavipes (approximately 14 mm. in length) was 

 capable of laying, after capture, over 1 dozen eggs between 5 p. m. 

 and 9 a. m. Hence even in large, well-established colonies the rate 

 of egg laying of normal queens is not remarkable. However, where 

 there are many neoteinic reproductive forms of both sexes in colonies 

 the increase is rapid and extensive. The rate of egg laying is not 

 comparable to that in tropical species. 



Since no types of the reproductive forms ever entirely lose the 

 power of locomotion, there is, in consequence, no permanent royal 

 cell, but these forms are usually in a cell in the more solid wood. In 

 winter they probably are to be found below the frost line in the 

 ground, where termites pass the cold season in a labyrinth of gal- 

 leries. Wood-boring ants 1 are to be found in frozen masses in 

 galleries in wood, but the soft-bodied termites pass the winter below 

 ground in a state of sluggish activity or are more or less dormant. 



THE PERIOD OF MAXIMUM EGG PRODUCTION. 



In large, long-established colonies of flavipes in the eastern 

 United States eggs and newly hatched larva? (fig. 2) are to be found 



1 Cremastogaster sp. and Camponotus sp. 



