308 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



The first establishment of a colony of Termites takes place in the fol- 

 lowing 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, entering the houses, 

 extinguishing the lights, and even sometimes being driven on board the 

 ships that are not far from the shore. The next morning they are disco- 

 vered 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 

 maggots ; 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 

 resistance. Insects, especially ants, which are always on the hunt for 

 them, leaving no place unexplored ; birds, reptiles, 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 

 millions get into a place of safety, fulfil the first law of nature, and lay the 

 foundation of a new community. At this time they are seen running 

 upon the ground, the male after the female, and sometimes two chasing 

 one, and contending with great eagerness, regardless of the innumerable 

 dangers that surround them, who shall win the prize. 



The workers, who are continually prowling about in their covered ways, 

 occasionally meet with one of these pairs, and, being impelled by their 

 instinct, pay them homage, and they are elected as it were to be king and 

 queen, or rather father and mother, of a new colony 1 ; all that are not 

 so fortunate inevitably perish ; and, considering the infinite host of their 

 enemies, probably in the course of the following day. The workers, as 

 soon as this election takes place, begin to inclose their new rulers in a 

 small chamber of clay, before described, suited to their size, the entrances 

 to which are only large enough to admit themselves and the neuters, but 

 much too small for the royal pair to pass through ; so that their state of 

 royalty is a state of confinement, and so continues during the remainder 

 of their existence. The impregnation of the female is supposed to take 

 place after this confinement, and she soon begins to furnish the infant 

 colony with new inhabitants. The care of feeding her and her male com- 

 panion devolves upon the industrious larvas, who supply them both with 

 every thing that they want. As she increases in dimensions, they keep en- 

 larging the cell in which she is detained. When the business of oviposition 

 commences, they take the eggs from the female, and deposit them in the 



males. Huber seems to doubt their being neuters. Nouv. Obs. ii. 444. note *. 

 Great differences of opinion continue to exist amongst entomologists as to the real 

 nature of the individuals above described of this very anomalous tribe, for the 

 details of which, and of the arguments employed, see Westwood, Mod. Classif. of 

 Ins. ii. 15. 



1 In this these animals vary from the usual instinct of the social Hymenoptera, 

 the ants, the wasps, and the humble-bees with whom the females lay. the first 

 foundations of the colonies, unassisted by any neuters ; but in the swarms of the 

 hive-bee an election may perhaps in some instances be said to take place. 



