1924 ] Systematic Position of the Family Termitaphididce 269 
structure of the body margin it is intermediate between the 
Aradids and Termitaradus. 
Dr. Wheeler suggests they may extract nourishment from 
either the nest material or the contained debris. Wasmann 
(1902) considers Termitaphis and Termitococcus Silvestri as 
affording the only known cases of trophobiosis among termites. 
Of T erjnito coccus nothing has been reported since the original 
description. As regards Terinitaradus the peculiar dorsal pores 
discovered by Morrison may possibly secrete some material 
attractive to the termites, but only field observations can decide 
this point. 
Most of the species of the family have been described from 
females alone. Males are now known of Terinitaradus a7inandalei, 
T. guiance (?), and T. payiamensis sp. n. Silvestri has given good 
figures of the male genitalia. Nymphs_ have been found of T. 
annandalei and of T. panamensis only. Silvestri has figured the 
outline of the body of the ultimate and second (?) instars in T. 
annandalei. Both these instars have one lateral lobe on each 
side of the body more than in the imago (female) the numbers 
being 14 and 13 respectively. The same difference is observable 
in T. panamensis, between all female nymphs examined and the 
common 13-lobe type of female adult. Silvestri considers the 
additional lobe in the nymph to belong to the metathorax but 
to the present writer it seems to correspond exactly to the extra 
lobe present in the adult females of some of the species and 
shown by Morrison to pertain to the mesothorax. The reduction 
of lobes has gone furthest in T. insularis (Morr.) in which the 
female possesses only twelve, the number present in the males of 
those species in which both sexes are known. 
TAXONOMY. 
An examination of the unique and beautifully preserved 
type of Termitaphis circuinvallata Y(asm. shows it to be a female, 
of a different genus from all Uter described species. Wasmann^s 
figures (1902) express these divergences quite clearly. It is a 
very different-looking insect with a swollen egg-shaped body 
surrounded by an incurved and upcurved dorso-lateral, seg- 
mentally-divided lamina almost meeting on the anterior half of 
