1128 The American Naturalist. [December, 
as usual, a royal pair. But instead of a large royal room en- 
closed in the middle part, the whole kernel was as a sponge, with 
irregular ways leading all through it. In these passages sat 
here and there not less than thirty-one compensating females,— 
five or six pressed tight together, with short wing beginnings 
(Fig. 1); six or eight mm. long. Among them only a single 
king walked around, of nearly the same size, and indeed an 
actual king, with large black eyes, and the wings were broken off 
from the wing-scales. 
A queen was lacking. 
Instead of a royal palace in which a king lived in chaste matri- 
mony with his equal consort, I had a harem before my eyes, in 
which a sultan satisfied himself with numerous coquettes.’ 
In course of a day these supplementary females laid a pretty 
large number of eggs, which were carried into little heaps by the 
workers. The same wave-like contractions, as with the queens, 
could be seen, and I saw with several the extrusion of an egg. 
The color of these females with short wing beginnings is à 
light brown, by which they are distinguished, as much from the 
pale, nearly colorless workers, as from the great deal darker-colored 
king.. As a whole they look pretty much like the workers, more 
alike than to any other forms of their kind, only they are twice 
aslarge. Their wing beginnings àre with most of them too 
smallto be noticed, by a not very careful observation. Their 
hinder body, only slightly swollen, has about the same oviform 
figure, and stands about in the same relation to the whole 
length as that of the worker. The likeness of the head (Fig. 2) 
* It may be supposed that Bofinet had already seen a similar company of supple- 
mentary females of Termes lucifugus. There were seven of them in the middle of a 
beam or joist. They were eight by ten mm. long, nearly white or very light red. Near 
them were found several egg heaps and very numerous larvae, enough therewith to fill à 
litre. Compare Dr. Hagen's report (10, page 130, and other places). 
i had found in Termes lucifugus only a single royal pair, and the bright color 
of those found by Bofinet is not characteristic of the real queens. 
When Dr. Hagen (12, page 177, and other places) supposed that Lespes might have 
seen no queens at all, but only large nymphae of the second form, contradicting the a5 
surance of Lespes (page 332, and at other places), expressly accentuated by Joly, 
that the wing-scales of his were always present. In the different m emen 
by Bofinet, Joly, and Lespes I can find no objection, as the females only grow up gr 
du- 
ally from that of the imago to the fabulous size which has made the queens of the 
m, CEN lah ve ee | P a a aS. H 4 Te ai oes 
