I SOP T ERA. 



97 



wanderers and provide them with food, and with shelter 



in the shape of a large circular shallow cell. In this they 



are really imprisoned, but are well cared 



for. Soon the queen or mother begins 



to develop eggs, and her body grows 



enormously. Finally, it is nothing but 



a huge sac filled with eggs, looking more 



like a potato than anything else, and is 



sometimes six or seven inches long (Fig. 



106). Of course the poor queen cannot 



move herself in the least, and if she were 



not fed would soon starve; but her king 



remains devoted to her, and her ladies 

 and gentlemen in waiting do their best 



to make her comfortable : they carry 

 away the eggs to other chambers as soon 

 as they are laid, then care for the eggs, and 

 feed the little ones when they are hatched. 

 The young termites are active, and re- 

 semble the adult in form. If a nest becomes queenless, and 

 the workers are unable to procure a queen, there are de- 

 veloped in the nest wingless sexual individuals, which are 

 termed complemental males and females. But as each com- 

 plemental female lays only a few eggs, it requires several to 

 take the place of a real queen. 



All White-ants are miners, and avoid the light. They 

 build covered-ways wherever they wish to go. In hot 

 countries they are a terrible pest, as they feed upon wood, 

 and actually destroy buildings and furniture and libraries. 

 They leave merely the outside portion of what they feed 

 upon ; and they have been known to enter a table through 

 the bottom of the legs and to eat all the inner portions so 

 that a slight weight crushed it to the floor. In Florida they 

 do damage to orange and other trees by girdling them below 

 the surface of the ground. 



Fig. 106. — Queen white- 

 ant, Termes gilvus. 



