9 FARMERS’ BULLETIN 759. 
Injury to living trees and shrubs, growing crops, or other vegeta- 
tion is only occasional and local and usually occurs because the land 
has been cleared recently and there is much decaying wood and 
humus in the soil. There are several kinds of termites, or white ants, 
in the United States, but those which are best known and most com- 
monly reported as injurious belong to three small, closely related, 
and very similar species ' of more or less general distribution. 
DESCRIPTION AND HABITS OF WHITE ANTS. 
‘‘White ants’’ are not true ants, although they are superficially 
antlike and live in colonies made up of different forms or castes and 
Fig. 1.—Winged forms of the white ant known as Leucotermes flavipes: a, Adult male; 6, terminal 
abdominal segments from below; c, same of female; d, male, side view, somewhat inflated by treat- 
ment with ammonia; e, abdomen of female, side view; /, tarsus, showing joints and claws. 4@, d, e, 
Enlarged; 5, c, f, greatly enlarged. *(Marlatt.) 
are social insects. In these nests or colonies both wingless and 
winged mature individuals are produced. The brownish, or blackish, 
elongate, slender, antlike, sexed adults (fig. 1) with long white wings, 
unlike the other forms, have functional eyes and are able to endure 
full sunlight. These migratory males and females appear normally 
only once a year during a short period. The grayish-white, soft- 
bodied, wingless ‘‘workers” (fig. 2) are in reality the destructive 
form. These workers make the excavations and enlarge and extend 
the colony as this becomes necessary. They live underground and 
shun the light and are therefore rarely seen. The soft-bodied, wing- 
less ‘‘soldiers’’ (fig. 3), which have an elongate, narrow head armed 
with long, slender, saber-shaped jaws, and the workers are the most 
1 Leucotermes flavipes Kollar, L. virginicus Banks, and ZL. lucifugus Rossi; order Platyptera, suborder 
Isoptera, family Mesotermitide. 
