How Animals Work. 



viduals from other nests. The swarms are eagerly fol- 

 lowed by various insect-eating birds, so that a very 

 large proportion of these winged Termites perish. The 

 survivors, however, on coming to earth, enter the ground 

 and become the founders of new colonies. 



The female, or queen, after impregnation, under- 

 goes the most extraordinary change her body length- 

 ening and becoming greatly distended, until it looks 

 like a miniature sausage of a sickly, fleshy- white colour. 

 She rests quite helpless, a living bag of eggs, in the 

 royal chamber along with her husband, the so-called 

 king Termite, carefully tended by the workers, who 

 feed the royal couple, stuffing the queen to repletion. 

 As fast as the queen lays her eggs they are carried away 

 to the nurseries by the worker Termites, and the result- 

 ing larvae are fed and tended as carefully and in very 

 much the same fashion as exists in the nests of the 

 true ants. Investigations have shown that in many 

 Termite nests, in addition to the reigning king and 

 queen, wingless males and females, who never leave the 

 nest in which they are born, are kept, but not allowed 

 to pair. They appear to be held in reserve, in case 

 no winged royal pair should be forthcoming, or to 

 replace the queen in the event of her untimely death. 

 Such accidents do happen, and then these wingless 

 pairs become parents. Of the swarming inhabitants of 

 the Termites' nest it is, in most species, only the perfect 

 males and females (kings and queens) who can see, both 

 workers and soldiers being quite blind. 



Some species of Termites are tree-dwellers, con- 

 structing their nests on trees at a great height, build- 

 ing the large rounded or oval-shaped nest amongst the 



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