10 
on swarming adults (lucifugus) in Kansas (McCulloch). Probably 
there are many other insectivorous animals that reduce the enormous 
number of winged termites. 
While clumsy in flight, termites are able to run rapidly, but ap- 
parently never wander great distances. Further, even some of those 
pairs that escape being devoured fail to become established in new 
colonies because of unfavorable moisture conditions in the incipient 
colony. 
The male is attracted to the female, and after the flight, either 
before or after the now useless and retarding wings have been dis- 
carded by being pried off at a suture near the base, tirelessly and 
closely follows her about. In this manner the insects separate into 
pairs and become established in shallow cells in the earth, usually 
under decaying pieces of wood, in holes in the wood, or under moist 
bark, thus independently establishing new colonies. 
The female in seeking the site of the new colony is sometimes 
followed by more than one male, and in shallow cells excavated by 
these reproductive forms there may be one female associated with 
two males or vice versa. 
MATING. 
During the first stages of colonization both the male and female are 
active, forage for themselves, and are apparently equally important 
in the establishment of the new colony and the independent rearing 
of the first brood of young. 
The habitation of the male and female or incipient colony is 
called the " royal cell," since it is occupied by a single parent pair, 
the especially developed " king and queen," which have originated 
from the winged, sexed adults after the swarm. The first brood is 
reared within the confines of this small chamber. In this type of re- 
productive form, after the pair have become established together, 
there is further sexual development and the abdomens of both sexes 
increase slightly in size. In case of the queen there is a later consid- 
erable post-adult growth. 
Unlike the other social insects, the sexual relations of the male and 
female termite are continued. Copulation probably does not take 
place until about one week after the swarm and the establishment of 
the pair in the royal cell, but is repeated at irregular intervals over 
a period of many years. 
THE RATE OF EGG LAYING. 
Egg laying in newly established colonies in case of the species 
fiavipes, in the southeastern United States, begins about the middle 
of June or July ; and in late June to July, or August — unhatched eggs 
being present till the middle of August — in incipient colonies of 
