R. J. Dobson.
A European Termite Reticulotermes lucifugus Rossi in the Vicinity of Boston.
Psyche 25:99-100, 1918.

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PSYCHE
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VOL. XXV OCTOBER, 1918 No. 5
A EUROPEAN TERMITE RETICULOTERMES LUCI-
FUGUS ROSS1 IN THE VICINITY OF BOSTON.
BY ROBERT JAMES DOBSON.
Bussey Institution, Harvard University.
In early May of the present year (1918) I was collecting termites in the vicinity of Boston in order to carry out some experimentsat the Bussey Institution. Only one species of termites has been known to occur in this part of the country north of New Jersey, viz., Reticulotermes ftavipes Kollar. I was surprised therefore during these collecting trips to find a few colonies of R. lucifugus, one of the common European termites of the Mediterranean region. This species has not been found in North America before, though at least two of our Western species have been confused with it. One of these occurs in California and another in Texas and also in Kansas.
There are not yet sufficient data on which to base a theory of its occurrence here. It would be less remarkable had it been found further south where the climate differs less from that of its home in Southern Europe. The fact that it has not appeared in earlier collections would indicate that it is not widely distributed, and it is entirely possible that it has been accidentally introduced from Europe. Kellogg1 records an instance of scores of termites of this species being found in the boards of some packing cases received at Stanford University from Germany.
The size of the colonies I have found, and the fact that one of them at least was headed by a large queen give evidence that they have been here for some years. On a wooded hillside in the out- skirts of Boston where I found what appear to be several distinct colonies of R. lucifugus the species occurs side by side with R. ftauipes and in approximately the same abundance. I have found the galleries of the two species within a few inches of each other. ~Kellogg, Vernon L., American Insects, 1908, p. 108.



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100 Psyche [October
The various forms in the colony are in general somewhat smaller than the corresponding forms in a co!ony of R. flavipes, and the winged adults are readily distinguished from those of R. jlavipes by the deeper pigmentation of the wings and the proximity of the ocelli to the compound eyes. Among the forms that I have ob- tained is a physogastric "true queen." The abdomen of this queen measures approximately three times the length of that of the winged adults at swarming time. "True queens" in this species have apparently been difficult to find in Europe, so much so that Grassi concluded they never occur in nature at the head of colonies, their place always being taken by "complementary" or "substitute" royal forms. In mors recent years however a few have been recorded.
The habits of R. lucifugus have been described in some detail by several authors, notably Lespes,l Grassi and Sandias2 and Feyt- a~d.~ I will add here only the following brief notes on the dates of molting and flying of the winged sexual forms. On warm hill- sides at Forest Hills and Stony Brook Reservation, nymphs of R. flavipes were found molting into winged adults in large numbers from May 5 to May 10, and were seen emerging from the colonies and flying on May 15, 17, and 19. The corresponding nymphs of R. lucifwus' were molting in numbers to the adult state nearly a month later, May 30 to June 5, and were found flying as late as June 30. The flying of the latter was probably somewhat delayed by the prolonged cold weather in June. In 1917 R. jlavipes swarmed in the early part of June in the colonies I was observing at Forest Hills. This corresponds with the backwardness of the season in that year. A typical swarm was witnessed on June 8. The development to the adult state is apparently accomplished in R. flavipes as early in the spring as the weather will permit. The nymphs reach the last nymphal instar in the late summer or fall of the previous year and are to be found in abundance as early as the termites appear in the spring, the first of April at Forest Hills this year. At this time they keep to the outlying parts of 1 Recherches sur l'organisation et lea moeurs du Termite lucifuge. (1856) Ann. Sci. Nat.
Zool., 4 s6rie, t. 5.
2 The constitution and development of the society of termites; observations of their habits; with appendices on the parasitic protozoa of Termitidse and on the Embiids~, (18934) translated by W. F. H. Blandford, Quat. Jour. Micros. Sci., vols. 39 and 40, new series. (1896-7).
8 Contribution & 1'6tude du termite lucifuge. (1912) Archives d'anat. rnicrosc., t. 13.



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19181 Dobson-A European Termite Reticulotermes lucifugus Rossi 101 the nest apparently to get the benefit of the warmth from the sun to hasten their development. This would appear to be the case also with R. lucifugus with the one exception that they do not reach the last nymphal instar in the previous season. I was im- pressed with the fact that early in May (May 11-15, 1918) when in the colonies of R. flavipes the nymphs of the winged adults had just passed through their final molt (see above) the corresponding nymphs in R. lucifugus colonies on the same hillside were molting into the last nymphal instar and did not pass through their final molt until some three weeks later. This difference is evidently correlated with the fact that the adults of the latter species fly - later than those of the former. It will be interesting to know whether the same difference obtains between R. flampes and R. virginicus in Virginia where Snyder finds the latter swarmkg a month later than the former.
I wish to express my indebtedness to Mr. Nathan Banks who identified my specimens as belonging to the species R. lucifugus. EMPOASCA MALI LEB. ATTACKS MAN.
BY GEORGE G. BECKER,
Agricultural Experiment Station, Fayetteville, Arkansas. On June 4, 1918,I was pricked several times on the arm by some leaf-hoppers which Mr. W. D. Gibson determined for me as Empoasca mali LeB. These insects were attracted to the light under which I was studying. The sting of these insects was very in- significant. Ishould say not more than half so severe as a mosquito bite. There was no swelling, irritation or other after effects. It
seemed that this Jassid did not do much more than merely prick the skin. On being disturbed, the leaf-hoppers which I observed moved off a little distance and again inserted their beaks in my arm.




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