CHAP. XIV.] GRASSHOPPERS, CRICKETS AND TERMITES. I41 



workers as guards and running out to repel any attack on the nest 

 by grasping, or at least threatening, the intruder with their jaws, 

 which arc large curved, pointed, and carried horizontally in front 

 of the head ; in many species the soldiers also discharge a sticky 

 liquid from a special gland in the head. The sexually mature 

 I ermites are most familiar as the winged individuals which swarm 

 out of the nests, usually during the onsel "I the monsoon; these 

 are males and females and maj often be observed to pair off in 

 couples, the male following the female in single file, both running 

 rapidly over the ground in search of some convenient chink or hole 

 in which to hide. As soon as a couple has paired off in this way. 

 and sometimes sooner, the wings are thrown off by an apparently 

 voluntary muscular action, breaking off transversely near the base 

 across the line of a natural suture and leaving the stump of each 

 as a small triangular scale attached to the thorax. Birds, frogs, 

 lizards, ants and insects of all sorts, even cockroaches and muscid 

 flies, devour the winged Termites as they issue from the nest and 

 very few escape; but a few pairs do burrow into the ground or 

 into trees according to the species, and excavate a small chamber 

 in which they probably pair and certainly do lay a small batch of 

 eggs which presently develop into workers and soldiers. The 

 colony gradually ^rows until there are enough workers to go out 

 foraging and sufficient soldiers to defend the nest and in the 

 meantime the original foundress grows larger and larger until, in 

 the case of some of the mound-building species, her body becomes 

 as long and stout as a human finger, and at this stage she is 

 nothing but a vast reservoir of eggs, which she extrudes at the 

 rate of at least 30,000 a day, and this probably during a period of 

 several years. The original male also remains in the nest but 

 scarcely increases in size beyond that attained when the royal pair 

 originally took to wing; he is generally found in the royal cell, in 

 which the fcm.de or "queen" is enclosed, although he often 

 escapes and is overlooked in opening up a nest. It is not correct 

 to say, arguing from analogy with bees, that the queen Termite is 

 only fertilized once, after which the male dies, for a male is ,ilv> 

 found if the nest is opened up carefully ; occasionally there may 

 he two, rarel) three or more, females, but I have never found more 

 than one male. In the case <<\ some of the more primitive spei 

 which live in wood, it is known that the ultimate caste assumed by 

 an individual can he modified by special feeding whilst it is still 

 young, so that an individual which would have become a soldier 

 can be made to become a sexual female, and in this manner 

 colonies of such Termites are able at will to replace their queen, if 

 she should perish by any accident, by a substitute which is called 



