344 ZOOLOGY 
neuters, will succeed in founding a new nest. In this a special 
chamber is set apart for the queen, whose body swells enor- 
mously. It may attain a length of more than 3 inches, and is 
distended by an enormous ovary. The queen lays eggs at the 
rate of 80,000 to 90,000 a day, and these are carried away 
and cared for by the workers. 
In Termes lucifugus, found in South Africa, the larvae 
which mature in the spring become kings and queens, those 
which mature in the summer become complementary kings 
and queens, and replace the functional ones if occasion arises. 
The king dies in the autumn, but, although the queen ceases 
to lay eggs during the winter, she survives, and resumes the 
ego-laying in the spring. 
The nests of Calotermes are the most incomplete; there is 
no special chamber for the queen, and their home consists of 
passages tunnelled in trees. 
Family 2. TurrpsmpaAzE.—A family of very small, usually 
black insects with fringed wings. Their body is long and 
Fic. 195.—Corn thrips (Zhrips cere- 
alium), female. Magnified. 
narrow, their antennae long and slender, and their mouth parts 
suctorial. Thrips cerealium does a good deal of harm to wheat 
crops, others injure flowers, etc. They are sometimes regarded 
as a separate order of Insects, and called the Thysanoptera ; 
other authorities place them with the Hemiptera. 
Family 3. EPHEMERIDAE—The Ephemeridae or May-flies 
spend but a short part of their life in the imago condition, at 
most only a few hours. They are delicate insects with a long 
body and a ten-jointed cylindrical abdomen which ends in two 
or three very long anal filaments. The imago takes no food, 
its mouth parts are rudimentary, and the oral cavity is 
stated not to open into the alimentary canal. The ducts of 
the reproductive organs do not unite in either sex, but open 
independently, one on each side of the ninth abdominal seg- 
ment in the male, and between the seventh and eighth in the 
female. 
