BY WALTER W. FROGGATT. 
435 
Many of the Eutermes nests are built in trees, sometimes upon 
a dead tree, the dead branch of a live one, the rough-barked 
Eucalypt being generally chosen, as the galleries coming up from 
the ground are skilfully hidden in the inequalities of the bark, 
though when they do come to a bare surface they go straight 
ahead, forming a regular uniform covered way. Not only is there 
a constant stream of workers and soldiers passing up and down 
the galleries, but the enormous amount of life one of these 
arboreal nests contains is something astounding; there seem to 
be more termites than nest material when they are first broken 
open. 
The dark, almost black, colour of the nests makes them very 
conspicuous objects on a bare leafless tree. Arboreal-nesting 
species of this genus have been described from many parts of the 
world; in Brazil the nests are known as " negro heads." Moseley* 
gives a description of them at St. Thomas (Virgin Islands) and 
states that they are often as big as a small hogshead. Hubbardf 
has worked up the arboreal species of Jamaica; and Miss Ormerod \ 
has noted from British Guinea large spherical nests encircling 
the branches of trees. 
In the third group of termites I include those that do not build 
mound nests, but live in communities under logs, stones, and all 
sorts of dead wood and timber. A number of our species 
never appear to build any well-defined nest, but like wandering 
gypsies, pitch their settlement in any suitable place, like the 
common American species, Termes Jlavipes, the real nest and 
queen of which are yet unknown. While some of them form 
regular little families distinct in themselves, others are predatory 
bands which find a suitable place to form an encampment and 
devour everything they can find; they are frequently connected 
with a large nest at some distance, to which they all retreat when 
disturbed. 
* H. N. Moseley. Notes by a Naturalist on H.M.S. Challenger, p. 12, 
n. ed. 1892. 
+ H. G. Hubbard. Proc. Bost. Soc. xix. p. 267, 1878. 
X Miss E. A. Ormerod. Proc. Ent. Soc. 1881. 
C C 
