INTERRELATIONS OF INSECTS 



3'7 



FIG. 274. 



female. The termite workers, as the name implies, do most 

 of the work ; they make the nest, provide food, feed and care 

 for the young and the royal pair, and attend to many other 

 domestic duties. 



The soldiers, like the workers, are of either sex, with unde- 

 veloped sexual organs. With monstrous mandibles and head 

 (Fig. 273, ), their chief duty apparently 

 is to defend the colony, though they fre- 

 quently fail to do so. 



The winged males and females (Fig. 

 273, C) which are sexually mature, 

 swarm from the nest and mate. After 

 the nuptial flight the pair burrow into 

 some crevice and shed the wings, which 

 break off each along a peculiar transverse 

 suture, leaving four triangular stumps 

 (Fig. 273, D). The king and queen 

 found a new colony and may live for 

 several years, sheltered in a special cham- 

 ber, the queen, meanwhile, becoming 

 enormously distended (Fig. 274) with 

 eggs and almost incapable of locomotion. 

 The prolificacy of the queen is astonish- 

 ing; she can lay thousands of eggs, 

 sometimes at the rate of sixty per minute. 

 She is the nucleus of the colony, and 

 should she become incapacitated, is replaced by one or more 

 substitute queens, which have been developed to meet the emer- 

 gency; similarly, a substitute king is matured upon occasion. 

 These substitutes (Fig. 273, E) differ from the primary pair 

 in having nymphal wing-pads in place of the remains of func- 

 tional wings. 



These six kinds are by no means all that may occur in a 

 single colony. Tennes lucifugus, according to Grassi, has no 

 less than fifteen kinds of individuals, counting nymphs in vari- 

 ous stages of development toward workers, soldiers,, and pri- 

 mary or else complementary, or reserve, kings or queens. 



Queen of Termes obc- 

 sus. Natural size. After 

 HAGEN. 



