244 tup: tropical world. 



long narrow wings folded on each other, enaerge from their 

 retreats in myriads. After a few hours their fragile wings fall 

 off, and on the following morning they are discovered 

 covering the surface of the earth and waters, where 

 their enemies — birds, reptiles, ants — cause so sweep- 

 ing a havoc that scarce one pair out of many thou- 

 sands escapes destruction. If by chance the labourers, 

 who are always busy prolonging their galleries, hap- 

 pen to meet with one of these fortunate couples, 

 they immediately, impelled by their instinct, elect 

 them sovereigns of a new community, and, convey- 

 ing them to a place of safety, begin to build them 

 a small chamber of clay, their palace and their 

 prison — for beyond its walls they never again emerge. 



Soon after the male dies, but, far from pining and wasting 

 over the loss of her consort, the female increases so wonderfully 

 in bulk that she ultimately weighs as much as 30,000 labourers, 

 and attains a length of three inches, with a proportional width. 

 This increase of size naturally requires a corresponding enlarge- 

 ment of the cell, which is constantly widened by the indefatigable 

 workers. Having reached her full size, the queen now begins 

 to lay her eggs, and as their extrusion goes on uninterruptedly, 

 night and day, at the rate of fifty or sixty in a minute, for 

 about two years, their total number may probably amount to 

 more than fifty millions ! A wonderful fecundity, which explains 

 how a termite colony, originally few in number, increases in a 

 few years to a population equalling or surpassing that of the 

 British empire. 



This incessant extrusion of eggs necessarily calls for the at- 

 tention of a large number of the workers in the royal chamber, 

 to take them as they come forth, and carry them to the nurse- 

 ries, in which, when hatched, they are provided with food, and 

 carefully attended till they are able to shift for themselves, and 

 become in their turn useful to the community. 



In widening their buildings according to the necessities of 

 their growing population, from the size of small sugar-loaves to 

 that of domes which might be mistaken for the hovels of Indians 

 or negroes, as well as in repairing their damages, the termite 

 workers display an unceasing and wonderful activity, while the 

 soldiers, or neuters, which are in the proportion of about one to 



