SOCIAL LIFE 257 



workers swallow and digest food and then disgorge it in 

 order to feed the " royalties " and young in their nests. 

 Termites also devour each other's excrement. They build 

 earthen tunnels over exposed surfaces of wood on wliich 

 they are feeding, and most species are, like ants, pre- 

 dominantly subterranean in habit. Hence particles of soil, 

 as well as wood, are constantly used as food. It is of great 

 interest also to find that many termites, like the leaf-cutting 

 ants already mentioned in this chapter (p. 242), are " fungus- 

 gardeners " and carry on this very specialised method of 

 feeding to as great an extent as the true ants. Wheeler 

 remarks (1923, p. 270) that while the ant mushroom- 

 gardeners '' are all confined to a single Myrmicine tribe 

 and are exclusively American, the fungus-growing termites 

 all belong to a few genera . . . and are confined to the 

 Ethiopian and Indo-Malayan regions." In the chambers 

 of their nests the worker termites construct spongy '' mush- 

 room beds " consisting of wood and other vegetable material 

 which has been broken up and passed through the insects' 

 food canals. The '* fungus-gardens," remarks Wheeler, 

 " are really the nurseries of the termitarium, and are full of 

 just hatched young, which crop the food-bodies like so 

 many little snow-white sheep." The cultivated fungus is 

 not eaten by the developed workers and soldiers ; it is a 

 special food provided for the growing young, for the 

 " royalties " and for other fertile members of the community. 

 Termites, like ants and wasps, practise extensively 

 mutual feeding. Besides the disgorged, digested food and 

 excrement already mentioned, these insects produce exudate 

 substances, derived from the blood and fat-body, which, 

 permeating the thin-body wall and cuticle of the abdomen, 

 can be '' licked up by other members of the colony." This 

 habit was observed by N. Holmgren (1909) and K. Escherich 

 (191 1), the latter stating that the large swollen queen 

 produces more abundant and richer exudate than any other 

 members of the community, and that her attendant workers 

 in order to obtain the delicacy take the liberty of biting 

 through the royal skin. Wheeler dwells on the importance 



s 



