138 DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS OF VICTORIA: 



ways and galleries. Each Termitarium is composed of a 

 vast number of chambers and irregular intercommunicat- 

 ing galleries, built up with particles of earth or vegetable 

 matter, cemented together with the saliva of the insects." 

 A family of workers consists of a "king" and "queen," 

 of the workers, and of the soldiers. Our Fig. 9 shows the 

 wingless queen, and in Figs. 5 and 6 the winged insects 

 in different positions. Figs. 7 and 8 show the wingless 

 " worker " and " soldier " respectively. 



According to the researches of Lespes, Bates, and Fritz 

 Miiller, the workers and soldiers amongst the Termites 

 are not sterile females, but modified larvae, which belong 

 to both sexes, and are arrested in their development, or, 

 rarely, males and females in which the reproductive 

 organs are rudimentary. Fritz Miiller has also discovered 

 that, in addition to the winged males and females which 

 are periodically produced in great numbers, there exists 

 in some, if not in all, of the species, a second set of 

 males and females which are destitute of wings. These 

 complementary males and females never leave the termi- 

 tary in which they are born, and they may take the place 

 of the winged males and females whenever a community 

 fails to secure a royal couple at the proper period. The 

 royal couple are the parents of the colony, and are always 

 kept together, closely guarded by a detachment of workers 

 in a large chamber in the heart of the hive, surrounded 

 by much stronger walls than the outer cells. They are 

 both wingless, and are immensely larger than the other 

 workers and soldiers. 



The queen, when in her chamber, is always found in 

 a gravid (egg-laying) condition, her abdomen enormously 

 distended with eggs, which, as fast as they come forth, 

 are conveyed by a relay of workers, in their mouths, fi'om 

 the royal chamber to cells dispersed through the hive. 



At the beginning of the rainy season (this of course 

 refers to tropical countries) a number of winged males 

 and females are produced, which, when they arrive at 

 maturity, leave the hive and fly abroad. They then 

 shed their wings (a special provision for this existing in a 



