380 



NEUROPTERA 



CHAP. 



lucifugus are now kept up in Sicily almost entirely by substitution 



royalties ; the inference being 

 that the age of each com- 

 munity has gone beyond the 

 capacity for life of any single 

 royal queen. 



The substitution royal- 

 ties are, as we have said, 

 called neoteinic (z/eo?, youth- 

 ful, TLvco, to belong to), be- 

 cause, though they carry on 

 the functions of adult Insects, 

 they retain the juvenile con- 

 dition in certain respects, 

 and ultimately die without 

 having completed the normal 

 development. The pheno- 

 menon is not quite peculiar 

 to Insects, but occurs in 



Fig. 236. Pair of neoteinic royalties, taken SOme other animals having 



from the royal chamber of Termes mirabilis ^ well - marked mctamor- 

 at Singapore by Mr. G. D. Haviland. The ^ i i nr 



(jueen was one of thirteen, all in a nearly phoSlS, notably in the MCXI- 



similar state. A, king ; B, C, queen. ^^^ Axolotl.^ 



A point of great importance in connexion with the neoteinic 

 royalties is that they are not obtained from the instar im- 

 mediately preceding the adult state, but are made from Insects 

 in an earlier stage of development. The condition immediately 

 preceding the adult state is that of a nymph with long wing- 

 pads ; such specimens are not made into neoteinic royalties, but 

 nymphs of an earlier stage, or even larvae, are preferred. It is 

 apparently by an interference with one of these earlier stages of 

 development that the " nymphs of the second form," which have 

 for long been an enigma to zoologists, are produced. 



Post-metamorphic Growth. The increase of the fertility of 

 the royal female is accompanied by remarkable phenomena of 

 growth. Post-metamorphic growth is a phenomenon almost 

 unknown in Insect life, except in these Termitidae ; distension 

 not infrequently occurs to a certain extent in other Insects, and 



^ Camerano, Bull. Soc. ent. Ital. xvii. 1885, p. 

 Basel, vii. 1883, p. 391. 



and Kollmann, Verh. Gcs. 



