92 THE STUDY OF ANIMAL LIFE CHAP. 



nomenal corpulence," she is a sort of reductio ad absurdum 

 of femaleness ' a large, cylindrical package, in shape 

 like a sausage, and as white as a bolster." But have 

 some admiration for her : she sometimes lays 60 eggs 

 per minute, or 80,000 in a day, and continues reproducing 

 for months. As she lays, she is assiduously fed by the 

 nursing-workers, while the eggs are carried off to be 

 hatched in the nurseries. At the breeding season, 

 numerous winged males and females leave the hill and 

 its workers in swarms, most of them simply to die, others 

 to mate with individuals from another hill and to begin 

 to form new colonies. When the flying termites come 

 to earth they cast off their wings and, though not of 

 mature age, consort together in pairs. A male and a 

 female walk off together to found a nest. The reproduc- 

 tive pairing takes place long afterwards. 



The plot of the story becomes more intricate when we 

 notice Fritz Muller's observations, that " besides the 

 winged males and females which are produced in vast 

 numbers, and which, leaving the termitary in large 

 swarms, may intercross with those produced in other 

 communities, there are (in some if not all of the species) 

 wingless males and females which never leave the termi- 

 tary where they are born, and which replace the winged 

 males or females whenever a community does not find, 

 in due time, a true king or queen." There is no doubt 

 as to the existence of both winged and wingless royal 

 pairs. According to Grassi, the former fly away in 

 spring, the others ascend the throne in summer. The 

 complementary kings or viceroys die before winter ; their 

 mates live on, widowed but still maternal, till at least 

 the next summer. 



This replacement of royalty reminds us that hive-bees, 

 bereft of their queen, will rear one from the indifferent 

 grub, but the termites with which we are best acquainted 

 seem almost always to have a reserve of reproductive 

 members. This other difference between termites and 

 ants or bees should be noticed, that in the latter the 

 ' workers " are highly-developed, though sterile females, 

 while in the former the workers seem to be arrested 



