1890.] Contribution to the Knowledge of the Termites. 1121 
I would pass over in silence the pretended congress (copula- 
tion) in the air if Azara and Rengger had not claimed to have 
seen the same in Paraguay, and they rightfully have the reputa- 
tion of good, reliable observers. In this instance of the Termites, 
however, they have not justified this reputation, for Azara gives 
the Termites six wings, and Rengger found the ground covered 
for fifteen minutes with male Termites; or at least their wings. 
Unfortunately he says just as little as to how he could make 
out the wings to belong to males, as in what way the copu- 
lation in the air took place. 
Rosenschold relates, also, that out of the thick swarms of an 
indigenous kind the animals fall down in couples, so that 
the above-mentioned pleasure walks may begin. With the poor 
ability to fly, and the deficiency of reproductive organs of the 
Termites, the copulation in the air I think to be distinctly impossi- 
ble. So much in justification of the statements of Smeath- 
man, as against the different opinions of scientific zoologists. 
His representations of the reproductive (sexual) life of the 
Termites seems—as far as I can judge from the facts collected in 
Hagen’s monograph—to be exactly right from my own experience. 
However, this point is yet incomplete for many other species, 
if not for those observed by Smeathman (Termes bellicosus), 
It finds therein no consideration for nymphz with short wing- 
cases, or better wing beginnings? These animals have been ob- 
Mantiquera denuding the trees of the foliage to carry the leaves to their nest is probably 
a mistake (with ants of the species CEcodoma); that the males of these Termites have 
during a five years’ sojourn, a Termite in really virgin forests in 
of Brazil, which probably all together have more Termites than our St. Catherines. In 
my own native forest live more than a dozen species. 
* The name wing-cases is applicable only for the oldest nymphæ which have en 
€ un Real wing-cas F 
+ devel 
n is ond (Lina. Eat e page I 26) in blotting out the so-called short 
wings ” ba soldier Sympa from the Em Er nis of the Termites as sie unwar- 
"pti if not soldiers at all, remain ae oem and at other places, on 102); 
just as those described by Dr. Hagen as soldiers of the 7 Termes (Termopsis ?) occi- 
dentalis Walker, and those of the Calotermes smeathmanit. 
