THE TERMITE, OR WHITE ANT. 363 



If the reader will refer to the large illustration, he will see that 

 the Termite of Southern Africa can erect nests of very great size. 

 Three of these structures are shown, and a human being has been 

 introduced by one of them in order to show their average height. 



The history of the Termites is so complicated, and so full of in- 

 cident, that I might occupy several hundred pages of this work in 

 describing them and their nests, and yet not have exhausted the 

 subject. I shall therefore give a general sketch of the Termites 

 and their habits, and then relate a few details concerning the spe- 

 cies which are found in Africa, Asia, America, and Europe. 



In the first place, the reader must understand that the Termite 

 is not an ant at all, but belongs to a totally different order of in- 

 sect, and is allied to the dragon-flies, the ant-lions, the May-flies, 

 and the beautiful Lace-wing flies. 



The Termites are social, and, like other social insects, are di- 

 vided into several grades, such as workers, males, and females, the 

 two latter of which are winged when they reach maturity. The 

 body is oblong and fiat, the antennae short, and the mandibles flat- 

 tened and toothed, and in most cases extremely long and formida- 

 ble. Each colony is founded by a single pair, popularly called 

 the king and queen, and the rest of the population consists of de- 

 veloped males and females, which are intended to perpetuate the 

 species and found fresh colonies, and of undeveloped individuals, 

 or neuters, of both sexes. The neuter males are termed soldiers, 

 and are armed with powerful jaws proceeding from enormous 

 heads, and the neuter females are termed workers, and are very 

 small. 



There are now before me some specimens of African Termites, 

 the soldiers of which are five or six times as large as 1 the workers. 

 They are formidable creatures, but they can do little harm beyond 

 inflicting a severe bite, as they are not furnished with stings nor 

 even with poison glands. They can bite through the clothes of 

 a European, and when they swarm upon the bare limbs of the 

 Negro they inflict almost unbearable tortures. The chief duty 

 of the soldier seems to be the defense of the nest; for, whenever 

 the walls are broken down, the soldiers come trooping out to at- 

 tack the invader, and, being quite unconscious of fear, they will 

 seize on the first strange object that happens to come in their 

 way. There are comparatively few soldiers, their proportion to 

 the workers being only one per cent. 



When a pair of developed Termites have settled themselves to 



