TERMITES IN THE UNITED STATES. 11 
virginicus, varying with the season, or about one and one-half months 
after the swarming. Usually only 6 to 12 eggs compose the first 
batch ; they are deposited in a cluster in the royal cell and are care- 
fully tended. The eggs begin to hatch in about 10 days after they 
are laid. 
Most larvae of the first brood develop to workers and a few to sol- 
diers. While the recently hatched young are active they are de- 
pendent on the care of the parents for food. During the develop- 
ment of the first brood the male continues to share the cell with the 
female and both are active. The abdomen of the queen at this time is 
not markedly distended. Egg laying ceases after the first batch is 
laid and is not resumed until the first brood of young is mature, i. e., 
about six months after the first eggs were laid. Copulation and egg 
laying occur at shorter intervals and more frequently from now on 
and the abdomen of the queen gradually enlarges, eventually be- 
coming greatly distended through constant care and feeding by the 
workers and the enormous development of the ovaries. These queens 
never reach the size attained by species in the Tropics. 
The rate of egg laying and development of the young and active 
queen of this normal type is slow and the new colony is small. Even 
after the rearing of the first brood the increase in numbers is not 
rapid. The capacity for egg laying becomes gradually increased as 
the abdomen enlarges, but queens of these species (Leueotermes) 
never entirely lose the power of locomotion. An isolated, fully de- 
veloped queen of flavipes (approximately 11 mm. in length) was 
capable of laying, after capture, over 1 dozen eggs between 5 p. m. 
and 9 a. m. Hence even in large, well-established colonies the rate 
of egg laying of normal queens is not remarkable. However, where 
there are many neoteinic reproductive forms of both sexes in colonies 
the increase is rapid and extensive. The rate of egg laying is not 
comparable to that in tropical species. 
Since no types of the reproductive forms ever entirely lose the 
power of locomotion, there is, in consequence, no permanent royal 
cell, but these forms are usually in a cell in the more solid wood. In 
winter they probably are to be found below the frost line in the 
ground, where termites pass the cold season in a labyrinth of gal- 
leries. Wood-boring ants 1 are to be found in frozen masses in 
galleries in wood, but the soft-bodied termites pass the winter below 
ground in a state of sluggish activity or are more or less dormant. 
THE PERIOD OF MAXIMUM EGG PRODUCTION. 
In large, long-established colonies of flavipes in the eastern 
United States eggs and newly hatched larvae (fig. 2) are to be found 
^Cremastogaster sp. and Camponotus sp. 
