NOTES ON THE TERMITES OF JAPAN WITH DESCRIPTION OF 



ONE NEW SPECIES 



By Masamitsu Oshima 

 {Of the Institute of Science, Government of Formosa) 



Two text figures 



In his important paper, Die Termiten Japans,^ Holmgren has 

 given in all 12 species of termites from Japan and Formosa, 

 of which one was referred to Leucoter'mes speratus (Kolbe) and 

 another identified with Coptotermes formosx described before 

 by me, while the rest were considered by him to be new to 

 science. In coming to that result, all the previous works of 

 Japanese entomologists on the subject were left in complete dis- 

 regard; how this came about is easy to perceive in as much as 

 they all appeared in the language of the authors. 



Now from a renewed examination of the termite material at 

 my disposal and of the relevant literature known to me, it seems 

 justifiable to make the following remarks: First, of the 12 ter- 

 mite species recorded by Holmgren, all except two, namely, 

 Hodotermopsis japonicus Holmgren and Leucotermes speratus 

 tKolbe) , were provided with scientific names in accordance with 

 the rules of binomial nomenclature in use among systematists, 

 and were described and figured in more or less detail by Japa- 

 nese authors; so that in the cases of the 10 species indicated 

 the specific names given by Holmgren should give way to the 

 earliest proposed names, since, for all I can see, there is no 

 reason to deny the application of the law of priority to the cases 

 in question. Secondly, I shall add 3 more species to the termite 

 fauna of Japan and outlying islands, raising the total number 

 to 15. One of the forms added is a new species, Calotermes 

 ogasawaraensis, from the Bonin Islands; the other two are 

 species which were described by me before, Calotermes inamurai 

 Oshima and Leucotermes flaviceps Oshima. 



The classification adopted in the following list is that of Holm- 

 gren.2 References to papers, reports, or periodicals published 

 in Japanese are indicated with asterisks; a list giving their 

 original titles will be found at the end of this paper. 



^ Annot. Zool. Jap. (1912), 8. ' Termitenstudien (1912). 



271 



