SOCIAL LIFE 255 



termites are definitely inherited, as among the newly hatched 

 young two sets of individuals may be detected, some with 

 smaller brain, eyes, and reproductive organs destined to 

 become workers or soldiers, while others with those struc- 

 tures normal, develop into fertile insects. It is therefore 

 not unlikely that the caste of any termite is determined by 

 the nuclear constitution of the egg whence it arises. Workers 

 and also soldiers of the same species may differ in size, 

 and many termite communities have three distinct forms of 

 fertile males and females. The '' kings " (Fig. 64, b) and 

 ** queens " are winged insects with firm dark cuticle ; 

 swarms of them when mature leave their native nests and, 

 after flying for some distance, come to the ground and shed 

 their wings. Many of such swarms are devoured by birds 

 and other creatures ; the survivors associate in couples, a 

 male and female, excavating, by their common labour, the 

 rudiment of a new nest in form of a small underground 

 chamber where they pair and start the foundation of a 

 community. In members of the second fertile caste 

 (Fig. 64, /) the wings remain undeveloped though recog- 

 nisable in a rudimentary condition, while the cuticle of the 

 body is feeble and pale. The third fertile caste (Fig. 64, g) 

 is characterised by a ver}.' pale cuticle and the total absence 

 of wings, features which recall the condition of the workers. 

 It is doubtful if these second and third castes of fertile 

 termites ever leave their native nests ; they have been termed 

 " substitution royalties," under the impression that they 

 are kept as " understudies " for the " royalties " in case of 

 disaster to the latter. Termites are among those more 

 primitive insects in which there is no marked transformation 

 in the course of growth, such as is so conspicuous in all the 

 social Hymenoptera, with their pale legless grubs. The 

 newly hatched termite displays all the essential features of 

 its parent, and the adult worker, wingless, soft-coated and 

 pale, with its reproductive system undeveloped, may be 

 regarded as retaining to a great extent the characters of the 

 young. The same view may be fairly taken of the third- 

 form fertile (" neoteinic ") termite in which no traces of 



