AGRICULTURAL BULLETIN 



OF THE 



STRAITS 



AND 



FEDERATED MALAY STATES. 



No. 12.] DECEMBER. [Vol. iii. 



REPORT ON TERMES GESTROI AS AFFECTING 

 PARA RUBBER (HEVEA BRASILIENSIS.) 



By Herbert C. Robinson, Curator, Selangor State Museum. 



I. — General. 



The Termitidce, or family of white ants, are a division of 

 the Neuroptera, almost exclusively confined to the tropics, and 

 numbering about 150 known species, arranged in four or five 

 genera. The group has, however, been but little studied and 

 probably includes at least 2,000 species. They are most abundant 

 in Africa, Northern Australia and the I ndo- Malayan region, but 

 appear to be by no means so universally distributed in tropical 

 South America. From the Malay Peninsula and Borneo, which 

 are probably better known as regards their termite fauna than 

 any other part of the world, about sixty species have been recorded 

 referable to two genera, while very many more remain to be 

 described. 



The family has not hitherto been considered as very destructive 

 to living plants. An unrecorded species (probablv T. taprobanes) 

 is known to destroy rambong seedlings in Assam, while another 

 (T. Havipes) damages fruit trees in Florida by girdling them 

 beneath the surface of the ground. 



II. — Systematic. ' 

 The Malayan species are included in two genera, Calotermes 

 and Termes. Members of the former genus, which is not very 

 extensive, are nestless, do not as a rule build covered ways, and 



