WHITE ANTS. 47 



females whose development apparently is arrested 

 and modified. 



Now, shall we return to the queen in her royal 

 apartment, and endeavour to trace the life history 

 of the various castes we have mentioned. The tiny 

 white eggs which closely resemble grains of sugar 

 to the casual observer, are carried into special 

 cells. The small white forms which come from 

 the eggs, are fed and tended by the workers. These 

 in time develop into workers, soldiers and winged 

 males and females. The wings of the males and 

 females appear towards the final moult, the inter- 

 mediate stage being spoken of as the nymph. 



White Ants vary in size according to the parti- 

 cular genus to which they happen to belong. 

 . They all feed upon timber. 



The home of the White Ant is called the termi- 

 tarium. This may be a huge rounded mass pro- 

 jecting from the sides of trees, or built over stumps 

 or even rising from old logs in or out of the 

 ground. Along the Southern railway in New South 

 Wales, particularly between Bowral and Goulburn, 

 great numbers of these head like masses may be 

 seen in the open paddocks. In Northern Australia 

 they are often found 20 feet in height. The hard 

 brown papery mass of which the nest is composed 

 is formed by the insect chewing up wood, and then 

 mixing it with particles of earth. Numbers of 

 rooms or galleries make up the whole, each having 

 its particular use. 



The cell of the queen mother (Plate 8, Figs. 4 

 and 6) is large with a small entrance. She cannot 



