THE TERMITES 



acquaintance of these insects immediately if one disturbs a termites' 

 nest, or begins to destroy it. In a moment termites with large heads 

 make their appearance. The dark yellow colouring of the head 

 betrays the fact that it is more solidly protected than the body, and 

 as a matter of fact it contains the muscles which operate the man- 

 dibles. During my visit to Ceylon I learned something of the termite 

 soldiers when one day I opened a clay nest. The soldiers rushed 

 out in such numbers, and bit so viciously, that my hand was actually 

 bristling with their little bodies, all standing tail upwards. As a 

 rule the soldier's valour is repaid by death. It will not release its 

 hold once it has closed its mandibles ; if one tries to remove it the 

 body comes away in one's fingers. The termites of Ceylon do no 



Fig. 35. — Soldier {left) and Worker of Eutermes Rippertii 



{greatly enlarged) 



more than irritate the skin, but the warlike African termites bite 

 until the blood flows in streams, as the zoologist Escherich experi- 

 enced in his own person. 



Unlike many species of ants, the termites are not aggressive, and 

 their soldiers are equipped for defence rather than for attack. With 

 their great heads they close the entrances to the nest ; if any other 

 insect approaches they lay about them blindly with their open 

 mandibles. But there are soldiers in whom aggression and self- 

 protection are identical. In the Brazilian Jumping Termite the 

 soldiers close their long mandibles so quickly that one hears them 

 click, and the insect is thrown back into the gallery by the recoil. 

 In other species the soldiers sound the alarm in case of danger. 

 They quickly rap on the ground with their heads, and those behind 

 them repeat the movement; in some species the resulting sound is 

 said to resemble that emitted by the rattlesnake. 



327 



