62 



JOURNAL OF THE 



[April, 



tube connecting with a magazine surrounded with strong 

 muscles, for firing an offensive glutinous shot, which puts an 

 antagonist twice his size hors de combat. One of these wonder- 

 ful soldiers is shown as object No. 30, while Nos. 31 and 32 are 

 sections through the head showing the tube, muscles and the 

 cerebellum. 



The workers perform the entire labor of 

 the community. They eat the wood, excavate 

 the tunnels therein, construct the nests and 

 galleries, prepare the food for the young and 

 the queens — feeding the former for a time, and 

 the latter continuously. Some of them are in 

 constant attendance to gather up the queens' 

 eggs, and to distribute them in the cells for 

 hatching. Like the soldiers, the workers are 

 blind. Picking up an egg, less than one-fiftieth 

 of an inch in length, in the dark, is but one of 

 the many wonders they can do. They have 

 some specialized sense, so acute that it makes 

 up for the absence of eyes. On the Isthmus, 

 unless the nest or galleries are broken into, the 

 workers and soldiers are rarely seen. They 

 do not swarm with the males and females. 



The galleries are dark, and the light is cut 



off when they are tunnelling the wood, which 



they are very careful not to cut through to the 



soldiers (nasuti) surface, SO their work is not noticed. A bureau, 



pfuarding workers ' ' 



while repairing? a standing against the wall of a room over two 



breach m a gallery. " ° 



(Natural size.) weeks, will often be attacked — the wood-work 



of the drawers so completely tunnelled, that one vigorous pull 

 will cause them to fall in pieces. A breach in a gallery will be 

 repaired in the day-time, but the extension of the galleries seems 

 to be done during the night. 



The worker is provided with short and stout mandibles, tor 

 cutting and tearing the wood. Each mandible, anteriorly, has 

 a short civrved point or tooth, and immediately back of this is a 

 second tooth. The species, however, are not all alike in this 

 respect. When the mandibles are closed, the projections of one 

 shut into the indentations of the other. Posteriorly the man- 

 dibles have a series of dentitions, used for reducing or masti- 



PlG 



-Eihterin es 



