Mr. T.S. Savage on the Termitide of West Africa. 99 
consequent upon and not precedent to pairing) should be shut up, 
seems questionable. We make these observations with hesitation, 
because Latreille, and Kirby and Spence seem to adopt, without 
hesitation, this statement of Smeathman.” 
I feel it my duty to notice particularly this doubt, coming as 
it does from a source of such high respectability as the present 
Corresponding Secretary of the London Ent. Soc., J. O. West- 
wood, Esq. 
It should be remembered that in penning this doubt, Mr. West- 
wood was sitting within-doors at Hammersmith, England, many 
thousand miles distant from the scene of Mr. Smeathman’s patient 
and prolonged observation. Mr. Smeathman states what he knew 
to be a fact, and respecting which I can see no way in which he 
could be mistaken. Mr. Westwood misapprehends a remark of 
Mr. Smeathman on their “ swarming,” if it can be so called. I 
do not understand Mr. Smeathman to state that the queen is 
accompanied by any other individuals than those of the two 
sexes—other perfect males and females. He says that as workers 
are always to be found on the surface of the ground, the king and 
queen are captured by them, and thus made to become the heads 
of new communities. On what foundation ¢hzs statement rests 
I know not ; but must confess that in this part of their ceconomy 
I think there exists a lacuna yet to be filled. As to the state- 
ment, however, involving the perpetual imprisonment of the 
king and queen, I have no doubt. The facts respecting the struc- 
ture of the “royal chamber” sufficiently prove it. Any one who 
has seen a fully-developed queen will say that she is incapable of 
progression, and the fact that no aperture has been discovered 
in the “ chamber” among the many hills dissected at different 
seasons, sufficient to admit of the ingress and egress of the king, 
aud hardly of the larger class of soldiers, must suffice. 
It has been stated also by compilers of Smeathman, that the 
insect shrinks from light, which is a reason for their constructing 
covered ways. But if it be remembered that the two orders— 
soldiers and workers-—are perfectly blind, the assertion must 
appear to be gratuitous. The true cause of their erection of 
covered ways would seem to lie in the fact that the imsect is a 
prey to a vast number of other insects, reptiles, &c. 
Smeathman and others state that Termes bellicosus is the insect 
which devours dwelling-houses, furniture, &c. This also I con- 
sider an error. I doubted its accuracy at the commencement of 
my observations, and made inquiries subsequently of intelligent 
observers at Sierra Leone and Montserrado, all of whom confirmed 
me in my doubts. The white ants found in our houses preying 
on our furniture, books, &c. are smaller, and larger m proportion 
to their breadth, than 7. bellicosus. The soldiers which accom- 
wk 
