The great Linnæus having seen or heard of but two of these orders, has classed the genus erroneously, for he has placed it among the aptera, or insects without wings; whereas the insect in its perfect state, having four wings without any sting, belongs to the neuroptera; in which class it will constitute a new genus of many species.
The different species of this genus resemble each other in form, in their manner of living, and in their good and bad qualities, but differ as much as birds in the manner of building their habitations or nests, and in the choice of the materials of which they compose them.
There are some species which build upon the surface of the ground, or part above and part beneath; and one or two species, perhaps more, that build on the stem or branches of trees.
There are of every species of termites three orders: 1. The working insects, which for brevity we shall call labourers. 2. The fighters or soldiers, which do not labour; and 3. The winged or perfect insects, which are male and female, and capable of propagation. From these the kings and queens are chosen, and nature has so ordered it, that they emigrate within a few weeks after their elevation to this state, and either establish new kingdoms, or perish within a day or two. Of these, the working insects or labourers are always the most numerous; among that species emphatically called termes bellicosus, which is the largest, there seem to be at the least one-hundred labourers to one of the fighting insects or soldiers. They are in this state about one-fourth of an inch long, and twenty-five of them weigh about a grain, so that they are not so large as some of our ants; from their external habits and fondness for wood, they have been very expressively called wood-lice by some people, and the whole genus has been known by that name, particularly among the French. They resemble them, it is true, very much at a distance; they run as fast or faster than any other insect of their size, and are incessantly in a bustle.
The second order, or soldiers, have a very different appearance from the labourers, and have been by some authors supposed to be the males, and the former neuters; but they are, in fact, the same insects as the foregoing, only they have undergone a change of form, and approached one degree nearer to the perfect state. They are much larger, being half an inch long, and equal in size to fifteen of the labourers. There is now, likewise, a most remarkable circumstance in the form of the head and mouth; for in the former state the mouth is evidently calculated for gnawing and holding bodies; but in this state, the jaws being shaped like two very sharp awls a little jagged, they are incapable of any thing but piercing or wounding, for which purposes they are well calculated, being as hard as a crab’s claw and placed in a strong horny head larger than all the rest of the body together.
The insect in its perfect state is varied still more in its form; the head, thorax, and abdomen, differ almost entirely from the same parts in the labourers and soldiers; and, besides this, the animal is now furnished with four fine large brownish transparent wings, with which it is, at the time of emigration, to wing its way in search of a new settlement; in short, it differs so much from its form and appearance in the two other states, that it has never been supposed to be the same animal, but by those who have seen it in the same nest; and some of these have distrusted the evidence of their senses. It was so long before Mr. Smeathman met with them in the nests, that he doubted the information which was given him by the natives, that they belonged to the same family: indeed, twenty nests may be opened without finding one winged one; for those are to be found only just before the commencement of the rainy season, when they undergo the last change, which is preparative to their colonization. Add to this, they sometimes abandon an outward part of their building, the community being diminished by some accident that is unknown; sometimes different species of the real ant, formica, possess themselves by force of a lodgment, and so are frequently dislodged from the same nest, and taken for the same kind of insects. This is often the case with the nests of the smaller species, which are frequently totally abandoned by the termites, and completely inhabited by different species of ants, cockroaches, scolopendræ, scorpions, and other vermin fond of obscure retreats, that occupy different parts of their roomy buildings.
In the winged state, their size as well as form is altered. Their bodies in this state measure between six and seven-tenths of an inch in length, their wings above two inches and an half from tip to tip, and they are equal in bulk to about thirty labourers, or two soldiers. They are furnished with two large eyes placed on each side of the head; if they had any before, they are not easily to be distinguished. In this form the animal comes abroad during or soon after the first tornado, which at the latter end of the dry season proclaims the approach of the ensuing rains, and seldom waits for a second or third shower; if the first, as is generally the case, happen in the night, and bring much wet after it, the quantities that are to be found the next morning all over the surface of the earth, but particularly on the waters, is astonishing; for their wings are only calculated to carry them a few hours; and after the rising of the sun, not one in a thousand is to be found with four wings, unless the morning continues rainy, when here and there a solitary being is seen winging its way from one place to another, as if solicitous to avoid its numerous enemies, particularly various species of ants, which are hunting on every spray, on every leaf, and in every possible place for this unhappy race, of which probably not one pair in many millions are preserved to fulfil the first law of nature, and lay the foundation of a new community. Not only all kinds of ants, and other insects, but birds, and carnivorous reptiles, are upon the hunt for them, and the inhabitants of many countries eat them.
From one of the most active, industrious, and rapacious; from one of the most fierce and implacable little animals in the world, they are in this state changed into an innocent helpless insect, incapable of making the least resistance to the smallest ant. The ants are to be seen on every side in infinite numbers, of various species and sizes, dragging these annual victims to their different nests. Some are however so fortunate as to escape, and be discovered by the labouring insects that are continually running about the surface of the ground under their covered galleries, the little industrious creatures immediately inclose them in a small chamber of clay, suitable to their size, into which at first they leave but one small entrance, only large enough for themselves and the soldiers to go in and out, but necessity obliges them to make more entrances. The voluntary subjects charge themselves with the task of providing for the offspring of their sovereigns, as well as to work and to fight for them, until they shall have raised a progeny capable at least of dividing the task with them.
The business of propagation soon commences; and the labourers having constructed a small wooden nursery, hereafter to be described, carry the eggs and lodge them there as fast as they can obtain them from the queen.
About this time a most extraordinary change begins to take place in the queen, to which we know nothing similar, except in the pulex penetrans of Linnæus, the jigger of the West-Indies, and in the different species of coccus cochineal. The abdomen of this female begins gradually to extend and enlarge to such an enormous size, that an old queen will have it increased so as to be fifteen hundred or two thousand times the bulk of the rest of her body, and twenty or thirty thousand times the bulk of a labourer; the skin between the segments of the abdomen extends in every direction, and at last the segments are removed to half an inch distance from each other, though at first the length of the whole abdomen was not above half an inch. They preserve their dark-brown colour, and the upper part of the abdomen is marked with a regular series of brown bars, from the thorax to the posterior part of the abdomen, while the intervals between them are covered with a thin, delicate, transparent skin, and appear of a fine cream colour, a little shaded by the dark colour of the intestines and watery fluid seen here and there beneath. It is supposed that the animal is upwards of two years old when the abdomen is increased to three inches in length: they have sometimes been found of near twice that size. The abdomen is then of an irregular oblong shape, being contracted by the muscles of every segment, and is become one vast matrix full of eggs, which make long circumvolutions through an innumerable quantity of very minute vessels, that circulate round the inside in a serpentine manner, which would exercise the ingenuity of a skilful anatomist to dissect and develope. This singular matrix is not more remarkable for its amazing extension and size, than for its peristaltic motion, which resembles the undulation of waves, and continues incessantly without any apparent effort of the animal; so that one part or other is alternately rising and sinking in perpetual succession. The matrix seems never at rest, but to be always protruding eggs to the amount, in old queens, of sixty in a minute, or eighty thousand and upwards in one day of twenty-four hours.