332 



LEISURE-TIME STUDIES. 



row covered galleries or underground ways are everywhere 

 to be seen, these latter being the passages along which the 

 materials used for building the nests are conveyed. The 

 termites are small soft-bodied animals of a pale colour, but 

 resemble the common or true ants in that they live in colonies, 

 composed, like those of bees, of three chief grades of indi- 

 viduals. These grades are known as males, females, and 

 blind "neuters," the latter forming at once the largest bulk 

 of the population, and including in their numbers the true 



FIG. 65. i winged termite ; 2, wingless termite ; 3, soldier ; 4, worker. 



"working classes" of this curious community. In the com- 

 mon ants, the " neuters " are regarded as being undeveloped 

 female insects. These neuters exhibit in the termites a further 

 division into ordinary " workers," (Fig. 65, 4) which perform 

 the multifarious duties connected with the ordinary life of 

 the colony, and " soldiers " (3), which perfectly exemplify the 

 laws of military organisation in higher life, in that they have 

 no part in the common labour, but devote themselves 

 entirely to the defence of the colony and to the 



" Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war." 



The workers appear to perform a never-ending round of 

 duties. They build the nests, make the roads, attend to the 

 wants of the young, train up the latter in the ways of ant 

 existence, wait on the sovereigns of the nest, and, like 



