34? PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



them ; but they may then be distinguished from the 

 blind larvae, pupae, and neuters, by their large and pro- 

 minent eyes a . 



The first establishment of a colony of Termites takes 

 place in the following manner. In the evening, soon 

 after the first tornado, which at the latter end of the dry 

 season proclaims the approach of the ensuing rains, these 

 animals, having attained to their perfect state, in which 

 they are furnished and Adorned with two pair of wings, 

 emerge from their clay-built citadels by myriads and 

 myriads to seek their fortune. Borne on these ample 

 wings, and carried by the wind, they fill the air, enter- 

 ing the houses, extinguishing the lights, and even some- 

 times being driven on board the ships that are not far 

 from the shore. The next morning they are discovered 

 covering the surface of the earth and waters : deprived 

 of the wings which before enabled them to avoid their 

 numerous enemies, and which are only calculated to 

 carry them a few hours, and looking like large mag- 

 gots ; from the most active, industrious, and rapacious, 

 they are now become the most helpless and cowardly 

 beings in nature, and the prey of innumerable enemies, 

 to the smallest of which they make not the least resist- 

 ance. Insects, especially ants, which are always on the 

 hunt for them, leaving no place unexplored ; birds, rep- 

 tiles, beasts, and even man himself, look upon this event 

 as their harvest, and, as you have been told before, make 

 them their food ; so that scarcely a single pair in many 



3 The neuters in all respects bear a stronger analogy to the larvae 

 than to the perfect insects ; and, after all, may possibly turn out to 

 be larvse, perhaps of the males. Huber^seems to doubt their being 

 neuters. Nouv. Obs. ii. 444, note *. 



