Photo by W. P. Dando, F.Z.S., Regent's Park.
QUEEN TERMITE.
Her huge white body is full of eggs, of which she lays thousands every day.
To this group belong also the Termites, or "White Ants," so exceedingly numerous in almost all the warmer parts of the world. These are social insects, living together in vast colonies, and making most wonderful nests, which consist of a vast and complicated series of chambers and passages, sheltered beneath a turreted dome of clay. In the centre is the "royal cell," inhabited by the "king" and "queen," as the perfect male and female are called. These are winged when first they leave the pupal shell. But after taking a single flight, they snap off their wings at the base, just as ants do; while for the rest of their lives they are absolute prisoners in the cell built around them by the workers.
Shortly after this strange incarceration takes place, the body of the queen swells to a huge size, so that, to quote Professor Drummond, she becomes "a large, loathsome, cylindrical package, 2 or 3 inches long, in shape like a sausage, and as white as a bolster." She now begins to deposit eggs at the rate of several thousands in a day, which are at once carried off by the workers, to whom is entrusted the entire care of the helpless young. These workers, which are exceedingly numerous, also enlarge the nest from time to time, and construct tunnels of clay up the trunks and along the branches of trees, through which they may convey to the nurseries in security the gums and decaying wood for the nutriment of the young.
A fourth form of insect is also found in the termites' nest, known as the "Soldier." The head is much larger and the jaws are much longer and stronger than those of the worker, and the sole function appears to be to defend the nest when attacked. Both soldier and worker, apparently, proceed from the same eggs which produce the king and queen, the difference in development being probably due—as in the hive-bee—to the character of the food with which the young are supplied.
Photo by W. P. Dando, F.Z.S.] [Regent's Park.
TERMITES.
The perfect male and female are winged, the "worker" and the "soldier" being more like grubs than perfect insects.