160 ECONOMIC ZOOLOGY AND ENTOMOLOGY 



wings, wingless workers, and wingless soldiers. The soldiers 

 have greatly enlarged mandibles which are used in fighting 

 enemies. The workers are smaller than soldiers or kings and 

 queens, but exist in larger numbers and get the food and build 

 the nest for the whole community. After a marriage flight 

 the queens find hiding places in the ground, break off their 

 wings, and each lays a few eggs from which begins a new 

 community. The young are all alike when first hatched, and 

 only workers or soldiers develop from the first eggs. Later 



FIG. 73. Termite queen, worker and soldier. (Natural size.) 



eggs give birth to young which develop wing buds and after 

 several meltings become fully formed winged individuals. 



Only one species, Termes flavipes, is found in the eastern 

 states. Its workers are about 1/5 of an inch long, white 

 and soft-bodied. The soldiers are a little larger, and the 

 winged males and females, which go from the nest and swarm 

 in the air in late spring or late summer, are chestnut brown to 

 blackish and but little longer than the workers. This species 

 usually makes its nest in or under old logs or stumps. It 

 sometimes does damage by mining the foundation timbers 



