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ENTOMOLOGY 



their chief duty apparently is to defend the colony, though they fre- 

 quently fail to do so. 



The winged males and females (Fig. 280, C) which are sexually ma- 



FIG. 280. Various forms of Reticulitermes lucifugus. A, adult worker; B, soldier; C, 

 perfect winged insect; D, perfect insect after shedding the wings; E, young complementary 

 queen; F, older complementary queen. Enlarged. After GRASSI and SANDIAS. 



ture, 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. 280, D). The king and queen found 

 a new colony and may live for several years, shelt- 

 ered in a special chamber; the queen, meanwhile, 

 becoming enormously distended (Fig. 281) with eggs 

 and almost incapable of locomotion. The prolificacy 

 of the queen is astonishing; 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 emergency; similarly, a substitute king is 

 matured upon occasion. These substitutes (Fig. 

 280, E) differ from the primary pair in having 

 nymphal wing pads in place of the remains of func- 

 tional wings. 



In regard to Termopsis angusticollis, in California, 

 Dr. Heath says that if only one of the royal pair be 

 destroyed usually only one substitution form is 

 developed, but when both perish, from ten to forty 

 substitutes appear, according to the size of the colony. 



In all, three types of reproductive forms are recognized : first form. 



FIG. 281. Queen 

 of Termes obesus. 

 Natural size. After 

 HAGEN. 



