SOME TROUBLESOME INVADERS 



365 



place to another, for the workers of most species are blind 

 or possess imperfect vision and do not travel in the light. 



Our species in the United States live in old logs, dead 

 or decaying wood, in sills of buildings, or in the ground 

 under stones. They do not build mound-like nests or 

 covered ways along tree-trunks and 

 consequently are not particularly con- 

 spicuous insects here. 



The common white ant (Termes 

 flaxipes) is found from the Atlantic to 

 the Pacific and from Canada to the 

 Gulf of Mexico. It has also been 

 carried to Europe, where it is a serious 

 pest to books and buildings. 



A community and its members. 

 Like the true ants, honey bees, hornets, 

 and others, the termites live in com- 

 munities or colonies and each com- 

 munity may be very large or quite 

 small as circumstances determine. 

 Several kinds of individuals, or castes, 

 as they are often called, exist in each 

 colony. In a typical colony of a 

 typical species, for example, an African 

 species, there is a queen grown to enormous size, some- 

 times six or seven inches long, perfectly helpless and 

 with no other business than to lay eggs (Fig. 126). She 

 is fed and cared for by the workers. It should be said 

 that no true queen has ever been found in the colonies 

 of our common white ant (Termes flavipes). In addi- 

 tion to the queen there is the king, or male, the 

 workers, which are wingless, usually blind, and always 



FIG. 126. A queen 

 termite. (X 1.) 



