14" 



SOME sol III INDIAN INSECTS, ETC. [CHAP. Xl\'. 



to distinguish the guilty species in order to apply appropriate 

 remedies; it is, for instance, ol no use to set to work and destroy 

 all the mounds in the vicinity, if the guilty variety is not the 

 mound-builder at all. 



Fig. 63. < a ti ol a rermite Odontotermes horni . 

 1. Worker; 1. Soldier; 3, Winged Adult. The smaller outline figures show 

 the natural sizes. (After Bugnion.) 



To understand anything about Termites it is necessary to con- 

 sider briefly the main tacts in their social economy. Apart from 

 immature forms, we can distinguish in each colony three distinct 

 social States or i astes workers, soldiers, and sexually adult indivi- 

 duals. In the case of the workers and soldiers, of each of which 

 castes there may be two or more sizes according to the species 

 concerned, the individuals are distinguishable as males and 

 females, but their sexual development is arrested at an immature 

 stage. The workers are so called because thej are the labourers 

 of the community, foraging foi food, tending and feeding the 

 young, and excavating and building up the nest; they are readily 

 recognizable by their vertically-carried heads with small broad 

 jaws. The soldiers derive their name from the fact that tin \ act 

 endersof the colony, accompanying the foraging parties of 



