REVISION OF THE JAPANESE TERMITES. â 



200 years ago gave an accurate account on their habits, there 

 should appear among the naturalists and travellers in the latter 

 part of the nineteenth century several, who denied their existence 

 in Japan altogether. 



For instance, the existence of termites in Japan recorded by 

 Kämpfer was denied by Martens (1), who stated : " Ferner sind 

 mir weder Wanzen noch Termiten vorgekommen, doch erwähnt 

 Kämpfer der letzteren sehr bestimmt, mit der japanischen Benen- 

 nung do-toos, Bohrer." 



Kein also denied the existence of termites in Japan in the 

 first edition of his well-known work (1) published in 1881, but 

 this error was rectified in the second edition (2) of 1905. 



In 1881 Döderlein (1) published a short account of his 

 observations on the termites of Ukishima, a small island off 

 Katsuyama, in the province of Awa, in the Bay of Tokyo. In 

 this he makes the following statement: "Larven von 2 bis 11 

 mm. Länge, geflügelte Tiere, die vom Kopf bis zur äussersten 

 Flügelspitze 19 mm. massen, daneben Arbeiter und durch einen 

 ungeheuren Kopf ausgezeichnete Soldaten," etc. 



In April of 1911 I visited the island of Ukishima, where 

 Döderlein obtained his specimens. After examining various samples 

 of termites collected at several places of that island, I found 

 them all referable to Leucotermes (Reticulitermcs) speratus (Kolbe), 

 which are much smaller than those recorded by Döderlein. 

 Although my collection was made at about the same season of 

 the year as that when Döderlein obtained his, yet it was a 

 noticeable fact, that none of the termites obtained by myself had 

 the dimensions given by him. Whether Döderlein' s specimer 

 belonged to a distinct species, which had since disappeared fro 

 the island, or I failed to obtain Döderlein's species, in spite 



