ORIGIN OF CASTES OF TERMITES 95 



stitution of one name for the other was merely an error on the 

 part of Miiller. 



Hagen ('55-'60) begins a section entitled "The different kinds 

 of larvae and nymphs" with the remark, "Der dunkelste Punkt 

 in der Naturgeschichte der Termiten ist die Erklarung der 

 verschiedenen Arten von Larven." Hagen believed that the 

 worker and soldier are arrested 'larval' stages, while other 'lar- 

 vae' continue to develop and become the nymphs and imago ; he 

 states that he bases this view partly upon his own observations, 

 partly upon two letters from H. W. Bates, then in Santarem. 



Under the date of April 19, 1854, Bates writes^- 



I believe that the larval forms from which the nymph and imago 

 arise are a special caste, and that the workers and soldiers, the feed- 

 ing caste, perhaps immature males and females, undergo no further 

 development. 



In a letter of April 29, 1855, Bates writes: 



I think you will agree with me that the different castes in termites 

 are composed of (1) soldiers and workers, which begin and end their 

 lives as such, (2) individuals which develop into nymphs and imago, 

 and from their earliest age form a separate caste. The point which 

 still needs investigation is, whether these latter forms hatch from the 

 egg as a special caste, or whether they are produced by artificial means, 

 namely by special food in special chambers, as the queen bee is made 



from a worker I have observed the queen in her cell and 



the heaps of eggs which swarms of the workers were carrying to all 

 parts of the nest, but I found no differences in the eggs, nor any defi- 

 nite method of distributing them in different parts of the nest. In the 

 second place, I saw small pale individuals which had evidently just 

 hatched, but I could not distinguish among them those which would 

 develop into nymphs. In the third place, in a larger stage of the young 

 pale individuals, I could instantly distinguish the future nymphs. 

 . . . . I have come to the conclusion that the individuals from 

 which the nymphs and imago arise are not produced by a special food, 

 because at the time when nymphs, young workers, and soldiers can be 

 distinguished (before the wing buds appear) they are found in the same 

 chambers with other individuals of different castes, of all ages and sizes, 

 all massed together and feeding. Whenever I open a mound I notice 

 this. It is not impossible that a still earlier age may be the time when 

 the individual receives a special care, but it seems improbable. So 

 that it must be assumed that all individuals from which the males 

 and females develop form a special caste from the time of hatching. 



^ The above quotation is translated from Hagen's text, which is a translation 

 of Bates' original letters. 



