APPENDIX. 



ON THE INSTINCTS OF SOCIAL INSECTS. 



A GENERAL account has been elsewhere given (ANIM. PHYSIOL., 

 Chap. XIV.) of the habits and instincts of the Hive Bee ; and a 

 similar sketch will be here given of the History of the Termites 

 or White Ants, and of that of the Common Ants. 



The Termites, or White Ants, belong to the Order Neuroptera 

 ( 675) ; and are the only true social insects contained in that 

 group. Next to the Locusts, they may be reckoned the most 

 destructive Insects known to Man ; since not only articles of 

 food, but clothing, fences, trees, and even houses, fall before their 

 devouring jaws. As they are confined, with scarcely any 

 exception, to tropical climates, we are only acquainted with 

 their ravages by the reports of travellers who have visited those 

 regions ; but these reports are such, as we may fully trust to. 

 The Termites live in immense communities, consisting of kings 

 and queens, soldiers and labourers. The kings and queens are 

 perfect insects, male and female; and their office is solely to 

 increase their kind. The soldiers appear to be the pupce, stopped 

 in their development, so as never to possess wings or to acquire 

 the reproductive organs ; it is their office to attack every object 

 or living thing, that in any way injures or endangers the safety of 

 the nest ; and this duty they perform with the most reckless 

 bravery, the labourers retiring within the nest during the time of 

 danger. The labourers are probably to be regarded as the larvce, 

 alike checked in their development ; their offices are manifold, 

 their duty being to take the eggs from the queen as fast as she 

 lays them, to convey them to the nurseries and to tend them 

 until hatched, and to feed the young, store provisions, build the 

 nest, repair damages, and perform every kind of labour requisite 

 for the good of the community, 



The nests of the Termites are so numerous all over the island of 

 Bananas and the adjacent Continent of Africa, that it is scarcely 



