266 ] The Wonderful Ways of Insects and Spiders 



Though termites are often called "white ants," they belong to 

 an entirely different order of insects. It is easy to recognize them 

 by their shape; termites are broad where the thorax and abdomen 

 join. They do not have the indentation or " waist" that all ants 

 have. The worker and soldier termites are almost colorless and 

 blind. The winged females and males, the future queens and 

 kings of new colonies, are dark-colored and have eyes. Actually 

 termites are more closely related to roaches than to ants. 



How Termites Digest Wood: Nearly any child can tell you that 

 termites "eat wood," but few of us are aware of the strange alli- 

 ance that makes it possible for them to live on this "food." Each 

 termite harbors numerous tiny one-celled animals that break 

 down the cellulose content of wood into digestible substances. 

 If you were to place a termite in a temperature high enough to 

 kill its minute parasites, it might continue to eat wood but would 

 derive no nourishment; before long it would die of starvation! 



FLIES CARRIERS OF DISEASE 



We all dislike and mistrust flies. They are generally targets 

 for destruction rather than objects of study. But despite all our 

 efforts to wipe them out, they are so extraordinarily successful 

 in surviving that they become objects of interest for that very 

 reason. There are many species of flies, but probably the most 

 familiar perhaps the most familiar of all insects is the common 

 housefly. 



A Generation A Month: The difficulty of keeping houseflies in 

 check is easy to understand once we are aware of the rate at 

 which they produce their young. The female lays a mass of from 

 twenty-five to about a hundred eggs at a time. In less than a day 

 these hatch into tiny white maggots about as large as the point 

 of a pin. The maggots actually larvae mature in four or five 

 days, then enter the pupa stage which lasts another five days or 

 so. The full-grown fly now appears. 



Shortly after, the mother of this brood may lay another mass 

 of eggs; and the new generation begins producing young of 

 its own within a few days after becoming adults. As long as warm 



