INTERRELATIONS OF INSECTS SL 7 
female. The termite workers, as the name implies, do most 
of the work; they make the nest, provide food, feed and care 
for the young and the royal pair, and attend to many other 
domestic duties. 
The soldiers, like the workers, are of either sex, with unde- 
veloped sexual organs. \Vith monstrous mandibles and head 
(Fig. 273, B), their chief duty apparently 
is to defend the colony, though they fre- 
quently fail to do so. 
The winged males and females (Fig. 
273, C) which are sexually mature, 
swarm from the nest and mate. After 
the nuptial flight the pair burrow into 
some crevice and shed the wings, which 
break off each along a peculiar transverse 
suture, leaving four triangular stumps 
Ceieee7o, 0), Une kino and. queen 
found a new colony and may live for 
several years, sheltered in a special cham- 
ber, the queen, meanwhile, becoming 
enormously distended (Fig. 274) with 
eggs and almost incapable of locomotion. 
The prolificacy of the queen is astonish- 
ing; she can lay thousands of eggs. Queen of Termes obe- 
sometimes at the rate of sixty per minute. te Natusalisize-—srtee 
= AGEN, 
She is the nucleus of the colony and 
should she become incapacitated, is replaced by one or more 
substitute queens, which have been developed to meet the emer- 
gency; similarly, a substitute king is matured upon occasion. 
These substitutes (Fig. 273, E) differ from the primary pair 
in having nymphal wing-pads in place of the remains of func- 
tional wings. 
These six kinds are by no means all that may occur in a 
single colony. Termes lucifugus, according to Grassi, has no 
less than fifteen kinds of individuals, counting nymphs in vari- 
ous stages of development toward workers, soldiers, and pri- 
mary or else complementary, or reserve, kings or queens. 
