White Ants 



survivors break off and they either pair and attempt to start a 

 new colony or they drop in such a situation that workers from 

 some old colony find them, join forces with them, and thus start 

 a new community. The body of the true female, or queen, be- 

 gins to swell with eggs, grows enormously, and egg-laying com- 

 mences. Unlike the true ants or any of the other social Hymen- 

 optera, the young require very little care from the workers. 

 They are quite active and very soon feed themselves to some 

 extent. The food of the termites is variable. It consists of 

 wood fiber, or their own cast skins, or their excrement, or the 

 contents of the stomach regurgitated by other individuals, or, in 

 the case of the soldiers, they may eat dying or even healthy 

 workers. The enlarged head and great jaws of the soldiers unfit 

 them, in fact, for any other kind of food. They can not gnaw 

 wood very well, and, as Sharp has expressed it, "their condition 

 may be considered to be that of permanent hunger, only to be 

 allayed by carnivorous proceedings." When the nest is disturbed 

 and the soldiers get excited they dash their jaws around and fre- 

 quently kill their fellows, but of course this is more or less acci- 

 dental, since they have no eyes. When a Callotermes wishes 

 food, according to Grassi, it strokes the posterior part of the 

 body of another individual with its antennae and by some sort of 

 a reflex action the contents of the alimentary canal of the indi- 

 vidual stroked issue from the anus and are devoured by the 

 stroker. The habitations of all termites are very cleanly, which 

 is accounted for by the fact that they eat everything, the contents 

 of the alimentary canal being eaten again and again until all 

 nourishment has been taken out of it. Hubbard, in Jamaica, 

 found that the young feed upon prepared food which is stored up 

 in the form of very hard and tough round masses, some nests 

 containing many pounds' weight. This material is softened by 

 saliva before it can be eaten. The true queens can be distin- 

 guished at once by the stumps of their old wings as well as, 

 later, by their enlarged abdomens; but there are in most colonies 

 individuals known as supplementary queens, which are capa- 

 ble of reproduction up to a certain point and undoubtedly help 

 to carry the colony on in case of the death of the true queen. 

 These supplementary queens are undoubtedly female workers 

 which have been fed in a certain way and which develop up to 

 a certain point, although not to the point of becoming winged. 



358 



