126 CHILDHOOD OF ANIMALS 



fed differently, and it appears as if the peculiar food they receive 

 were the stimulus to their different mode of development. The 

 use of the soldiers is to defend the colony, by blocking up apertures 

 with their enormous heads and powerful jaws, threatening, attack- 

 ing and driving away enemies. In their youth these warriors 

 have undergone a kind of forced conscription, but they have been 

 so shaped and trained for their special functions that they cannot 

 resume the normal life and normal functions of perfect individuals. 



In some of the numerous African species of termites which 

 construct chambered dwellings many feet high, the colonies are 

 much more elaborate, but remain essentially single families, all 

 being the descendants of one pair, the king and queen. These lose 

 their wings, and the queen becomes enormous in size, and lays 

 almost incalculable quantities of eggs. The larvae that hatch out 

 are at first much alike, but, owing partly to differences in food, 

 some remain small, blind and wingless, with arrested sexual organs, 

 and live their whole lives as workers, constructing the chambers, 

 providing the food, tending the king and queen, soldiers and young. 

 Others also remain blind and wingless, but grow several times as 

 large as the workers, and develop enormous heads with strong jaws 

 or with peculiar snout-like protrusions from the forehead ; these 

 also remain in a condition of arrested sexual development, and act 

 as soldiers or warriors, being useful only for the defence of the colony. 

 Finally, other larvae develop into perfect winged insects, male or 

 female, and leave the colony in great numbers, most of them 

 perishing, but a few becoming the founders of new colonies. These 

 elaborate communities may consist of many thousands of individuals, 

 but they remain a single family, and it is believed that, whilst 

 occasionally a new king and queen may be reared, in most cases 

 the community perishes when the original founders die. 



The saw-flies, like most insects, do little more for their young 

 than deposit the eggs in suitable places. The females are pro- 

 vided with a pair of sharp, toothed blades, placed on the lower side 

 of the abdomen, by which they saw into the tissues of plants and 

 prepare a place in which the eggs may be laid and the newly hatched 

 larvae find food. In one rare case, however, maternal care goes 

 further. The female deposits her eggs, about eighty in number 

 (and this is much less than the usual number in these prolific 

 insects) on the leaf of a eucalyptus, then watches over them until 

 they hatch, and remains for some time with the young larvae, 

 standing over them with outstretched legs, and so warding off 



