1877.] 273 [Hubbard. 



once I opened a small nest (two feet in diameter) placed within a 

 foot of the ground, upon the trunk of the coccoloba, or sea-side 

 grape, growing in loose sand and within a few yards of the sea. The 

 whole nest swarmed with black-headed nasuti, and nothing else. I 

 am afraid I have lost these specimens also in part of my baggage 

 which went astray. 



At a place twelve hundred feet up in the hills, and consequently 

 in a damp, cool climate, I was searching a small, densely wooded 

 island in the Wagwater River (a considerable mountain stream), 

 when I observed two or three small holes in the end of a small dead 

 branch. Thinking to find Seolytidas, or ants, I broke off the branch 

 and opened it. To my surprise, I found what appeared to be the 

 commencement of a colony of termites, which had not begun a nest, 

 and had made no external galleries; in fact, they were isolated in a 

 few simple burrows at the end of this short dead branch. The col- 

 ony consisted of three or four sexual individuals, with wings pulled 

 off, one or two very large mandibulate soldiers, and about a dozen 

 workers, but no nasuti. As there was not a trace of the material of 

 which nests and galleries are composed, the absence of nasuti is pos- 

 sibly significant. On the other hand, this may be a species which 

 does not build nests or galleries. The branch in which they were 

 did not weigh more than* two or three ounces, and was the broken 

 butt of a branch on a living tree, and about four feet from the 

 ground. Certainly it seems probable that a nest in time would have 

 been constructed with a gallery leading to the ground, for I do not 

 suppose these, or any termites, would burrow into living wood. 

 They were collected at Stony Hill, near Kingston, on March 10, 187 7. 1 



From the nests mentioned in my notes, I send you a full series of 

 everything I collected. Nests of the species to which Nos. 3 and 5 

 \_E. Rippertii] belong, were usually very large. I cut them with a 

 long-bladed cutlass. The outside (of which I send a specimen) cut 

 easily, like pie-crust, but the interior was harder, and especially in 

 the neighborhood of the queen's cell was very tough indeed. When 

 one considers the immense mass of the nest, as big as a hogshead, 

 every part of which swarms with termites in countless thousands, 

 one will understand the difficulty of hunting up the queen. In my . 

 examination of nest No. 3, I did not expose the queen's cell until 

 after two days' work. When I first cut into the nest, order reigned 



1 Calotermes castaneus sp. Dr. H. 



