TERMITIDAE 375 



merit of their sexual organs at different periods. The fact that 

 sex has nothing whatever to do with the determination of the 

 form of workers and soldiers may be considered to be well 

 established. 



The statement that the young are all born alike is much 

 more difficult to substantiate. Bates said that the various forms 

 could be detected in the new-born. His statement was made, 

 however, merely from inspection of the nests of species about 

 which nothing was previously known, and as it is then very 

 difficult to decide that a specimen is newly hatched, it is probable 

 that all he meant was that the distinction of workers, soldiers, 

 and sexual forms existed in very small individuals a statement 

 that is no doubt correct. Other observers agree that the young 

 are in appearance all alike when hatched, and Grassi reiterates his 

 statement to this effect. Hence it would appear that the differ- 

 ence of form we are' discussing arises from some treatment subse- 

 quent to hatching. It may be suggested, notwithstanding the 

 fact that the young are apparently alike when hatched, that they 

 are not really so, but that there are recondite differences which are 

 in the course of development rendered conspicuous. This con- 

 clusion cannot at present be said with certainty to be out of the 

 question, but it is rendered highly improbable by the fact 

 ascertained by Grassi that a specimen that is already far advanced 

 on the road to being an ordinary winged individual can be diverted 

 from its evident destination and made into a soldier, the wings 

 that were partially developed in such a case being afterwards 

 more or less completely absorbed. This, as well as other facts 

 observed by Grassi, render it probable that the young are truly, 

 as well as apparently, born in a state undifferentiated except as 

 regards sex. Fig. 230 (p. 363) is designed to illustrate Grassi's 

 view as to this modification ; the individual A is already far 

 advanced in the direction of the winged form C, but can never- 

 theless be diverted by the Termites to form the adult soldier B. 



According to the facts we have stated, neither heredity nor 

 sex nor arrest of development are the causes of the distinctions 

 between worker and soldier, though some arrest of development is 

 common to both ; we are therefore obliged to attribute the dis- 

 tinction between them to other influences. Grassi has no 

 hesitation in attributing the anatomical distinctions that arise 

 between the soldiers, workers, and winged forms to alimentation. 



