Termites or White Ants 



from their attacks. The other workers bring small pieces 

 of vegetable matter to the nest, and these are chewed up 

 and reduced to a pulp before being eaten. But food from 

 the outside world forms only a small portion of the daily 

 menu. Their own cast skins, regurgitated food and even 

 their excrement form the staple foods of a termite colony. 

 They eat everything eatable ; their excrement is devoured, 

 and greedily too, time and again, till it contains no further 

 nourishment. Small wonder, then, that their nests are 

 models of cleanliness. 



When food is scarce and a termite is hungry it will 

 stroke the back of a fellow-worker with its feelers, a 

 proceeding which causes the stroked individual to void 

 partly digested food. This the hungry termite seizes im- 

 mediately and devours with gusto. For the young, 

 special food is stored after being rolled into balls. This 

 food, which may weigh several pounds in all, is stored in 

 special cells ; it is so hard as to be quite beyond the 

 powers of the young termites' jaws. The nurses, accord- 

 ingly, come to the rescue and moisten the food masses 

 with their saliva, thereby rendering it soft and palatable. 



Allied to, though not very closely related to, the 

 termites are the ant-lions. The adult insects are of little 

 interest, except for their beauty; with their elongated 

 bodies and lustrous, gauzy wings, they closely resemble 

 dragon-flies. The larva, however, is a totally different 

 being to its active parents. It is as ugly as they are 

 beautiful, as sluggish as they are nimble. Though scarcely 

 able to drag its ill-formed body along the ground by the 

 aid of its feeble legs, it lives upon the most active insects, 

 and its mode of trapping them is truly remarkable. The 

 larva is a thick-set, soft-bodied little creature, armed with 

 a pair of formidable, grooved jaws. Sand is absolutely 

 essential to the insect's welfare, for in sand alone is it 

 able to construct the pitfalls which it uses in the capture 

 of its prey. 



Having selected a suitable site, which is probably near 



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