406 THE INSECT WORLD. 



The workers have a rounded head and short mandibles, and are blind. 

 The soldiers, less numerous, have an enormous head — nearly as big 

 as the rest of their body — very strong, crossed mandibles, and are 

 blind like the workers. Anatomy showed M. Lespes that both are 

 neuters — that is, the soldiers, males, and the workers, females — with 

 aborted organs. 



The larvae of the females much resemble the workers. Those 

 which are to become males or females are distinguished from those 

 which are to become neuters by very slight rudiments of wings, and 

 their pupae show already imperfect wings, hidden in cases ; further- 

 more, they have eyes hidden under the skin. The males and females 

 alone have eyes ; they also have wings, which they lose imme- 

 diately after the coupling. Those which proceed from the pupae 

 with long wing cases become small kings and queens after their 

 swarming, which takes place at the end of May. The pupae with 

 short wing-cases become perfect in the month of August, and produce 

 larger males and females, which become kings and queens. All these 

 couples are collected by the neuters ; and the queens, large and 

 small, set to work immediately to lay. The largest are much the more 

 fruitful. The workers do not seem to take any care of them at all. 

 With the exception of this last peculiarity, everything probably goes 

 on in the same manner with the exotic termites j but with the latter 

 the queen is an object of worship. 



Fig. 383 represents the four types of the republic of the Termes 

 lucifugus. On the left is a worker, on the right a soldier, in the 

 centre a winged male, all three very much magnified, the lines drawn 

 by their side showing the natural size. Below the male is the preg- 

 nant queen (d D d d), of a species of which we are about to speak, 

 of the natural size. 



Many species of termites were studied with care by the English 

 traveller, Smeathman, at the end of the last century, in Southern 

 Africa. His account of them is the most exact and most complete 

 which we have of these insects.* The largest of the species observed 

 is the Termes bellicosus. The workers are a fifth of an inch long, the 

 body soft, and of an extreme delicacy, but the sharp mandibles 

 capable of attacking the hardest bodies. The soldiers are twice as 

 long, and weigh as much as fifteen workers, and may be distinguished 

 by their enormous horned head, armed with sharp pincers. The male 

 weighs as much as thirty workers, and attains to a length of nearl) 

 four-fifths of an inch. 



* " Some Account of the Termites," &c., in the Philosophical Transactions, vol 

 Ixxi. 1 781. 



