Scudder.] 300 [January 23, 



breadth of same, posteriorly, 8.75 mm.; probable length of last 

 segment 5 mm.; length of caudal appendages 26 mm. ; breadth of 

 same, at base, 3 mm. ; in middle 2.5 mm.; at broken tip 1.2 mm. 



The specimen, as I am informed by Mr. Gurley, comes from the 

 •bed marked as No. 14 in the section of the coal-measures of Ver- 

 milion County, given by Mr. Bradley in the Geology of Illinois, Vol. 

 4, pp. 244-47. 



Plate 9, fig. 3, represents the abdominal fragment of the natural 

 size; fig. 3, a, the same enlarged. 



A Carboniferous Termes from Illinois. By Samuel H. 

 Scudder. 



An ironstone nodule from the coal measures of Vermilion Co., El., 

 sent to me by Mr. Wm. Gurley, contains the remains of an insect, 

 consisting of a pair of wings, apparently front wings, of opposite 

 sides. The body between is crushed past all recognition, and frag- 

 ments of the legs lying beneath the wings only show that they were 

 slender. The wings, also, are only partially preserved, their bases 

 •being destroyed with the crushing of the body and their tips by 

 extending beyond the edge of the nodule; more than half of each 

 wing remains, however, comprising some of the more important 

 parts, and showing that the insect belonged to the white ants. It is 

 interesting from the fact that it is not only the first white ant found 

 fossil in America, but is also the oldest known representative of that 

 group of white ants whose wings are not reticulated, all the carbon- 

 iferous white ants of Europe having net-veined wings. It seems to 

 be more nearly allied to some of the tertiary Termitina described by 

 Heer from Radoboj, and indeed to many living forms, than to other 

 carboniferous Termitina, but it is much larger than its nearest allies. 

 It may be called Termes contusus. 



All the veins from the marginal to the interno-median inclusive, as 

 far as they are traceable on the stone, are nearly straight and par- 

 allel; the upper three are also simple, and the scapular area is con- 

 siderably and uniformly depressed; the externo-median vein is forked 

 near the base of the wing, and the space included between the forks, 

 as well as the externo-median area, is traversed by feeble inequidis- 

 tant, straight or oblique, cross-veins. The interno-median vein 

 traverses the middle of the wing, or runs scarcely above it, and emits 

 from its lower border a large number of oblique veins, which run, 



