86 CAROLINE BURLING THOMPSON 



Bobe-Moreau and Boffinet should be recorded among the 

 fathers of economic entomology. 



Lespes is prominent among the men of this group who inter- 

 ested themselves especially in the biology and anatomy of ter- 

 mites. His monograph ('56) upon the structure and habits of 

 Termes (Leucotermes) lucifugus, based upon careful observa- 

 tions and minute dissections, was an important contribution to 

 science. 



Referring to the youngest nymphs^ Lespes says : 



les larves les plus petites que j'aie pu voir avaient environ 1 millimetre 

 de long; elles venaient de sortir de I'oeuf. Chez elles, il est impossible 

 de distinguer plusieurs formes . . . . ce sont, pour moi, les 



larves du premier age Ainsi, tous les termites se ressemblent 



pendant le premier age. La difference des neutres et des sexues com- 

 mence au second. 



Lespes also gives an account of the metamorphosis of the 

 soldier from a worker-like nymph, which will be quoted in a later 

 section, p. 124. 



Darwin ('59) in the eighth chapter of the 'Origin of Species', 

 under the heading of "Objections to the Theory of Natural 

 Selection as applied to Instincts: Neuter and Sterile Insects" 

 states : 



The subject well deserves to be discussed at great length, but I 

 will here take only a single case, that of working or sterile ants. How 

 the workers have been rendered sterile is a difficulty; but not much 



greater than that of anj^ other modification of structure 



But I must pass over the preliminary difficulty. The great difficulty 

 lies in the working ants differing widely from both the males and the 

 fertile females in structure, as in the shape of the thorax, and in being 



destitute of wings and sometimes of eyes, and in instinct 



According to M. Verlot, some varieties of the double annual stock from 

 having been long and carefully selected to the right degree, always 

 produce a large proportion of seedlings bearing double and quite 

 sterile flowers; but they hkewise yield some single and fertile plants. 

 These latter, by which alone the variety can be propagated, may be 

 compared with the fertile male and female ants, and the double sterile 



1 The term nymph is used in this paper to denote any developmental stage 

 of an insect with incomplete metamorphosis, whether the form possesses wing 

 pads or not. The older authors. used the term 'larva' to denote the younger 

 nymphs in which wing pads were not visible to the naked eye. 



