ENTOMOLOGIST AND BOTANIST. 



267 



black insects that seem to have something to do 

 witli the colon)', but are furnished with long, 

 while shining wings? These are the males, 

 they are hurrying down out of sight as quickly 

 as possible; you Avill never see one of them 

 troubling himself about tlie care of the young. 

 Nor will you ever see the soldiers doing this 

 good work either; they, cowardly creatures, 

 have retreated into the burrows, and only occa- 

 sionally the head of one appears at an opening, 

 nearly filling it, and obstructing the way of this 

 nurse-worker, who is obliged to kick and punch 

 tlie military blockhead repeatedly before he will 

 suffer her to pass with her load. 



INIake haste to secure the specimens you want 

 of the males, put them in a small, dry vial and 

 give them a drop of chloroform. If you pin them 

 now, they won't have a wing left on their shoul- 

 ders when you get home, so loosely are these 

 appendages attached. Put a few soldiers in 

 alcohol in a small vial, and you will have ample 

 time to secure some of the brave little workers, 

 who are so earnest in their duties that they have 

 removed almost all the young to the vaults be- 

 low. There are only a few left, at the extreme 

 points of the gallery, and here are two or three 

 ravening enemies, in the shape of true ants, 

 seizing and carrying off to their own homes for 

 food the tender young Termites. Where arc the 

 soldiers now? Like policemen, not to be found 

 when wanted, they are safely ensconced witliin 

 the chambers of the dwelling. But we will do 

 them the justice to say that, had not the terrible 

 eartli(|uake (from their point of view) unroofed 

 till' cdilice and bewildered their faculties, they 

 would have boldly ciiiiiliaicil tlir pirati<-al ants, 

 and sacrificed unIic>il;iliiiL;l\ lliciv own limbs 

 and lives to save tlu> hrliilr.-- otl'-priii.L;- of their 

 nueen. See this poor worker, with its feeble 

 might endeavoring to rescue the little one from 

 the powerful jaws of the marauder ; regardless 

 of danger and wounds, she opposes the two or 

 three strong black kidnappers, but at last her 

 soft body is gashed, and her tender limbs are 

 torn off, by their powerful jaws — she has sacri- 

 ficed her life in the vain attempt. 



And now the surface of the Termite's home is 

 deserted ; most of the young have been saved ; 

 the soldiers are keeping guard in the subter- 

 ranean galleries, and the workers are ministering 

 to their little charges in tlie dark nui'series 

 below. If we now dig a trench at the side of 

 tlie space formerly covered by the slab, and slice 

 off carefully, with a spade or large-bladed knife, 

 the earth in thin sections, we shall get a fine view 

 of the labjTinth of burrows, galleries aud cham- 

 bers of the Termite's home. We shall perhaps 



discover, in a large commodious chamber deep 

 down near the centre of the dwelling, a large, 

 soft-bodied female, the true mother of the next 

 generation. Her head, thorax and limbs are 

 about the size of those of the workers, but her 

 abdomen is expanded to a prodigious size, mak- 

 ing it impossible for her to leave her cell, iu 

 which she is carefully tended aud fed by the 

 workers. They remove also the young as soon 

 as they are born, and take the entire charge of 

 nursing them up to maturity. 



Many naturalists believe the workers to be 

 females which are unfit for becoming mothers ; 

 the development of the ovaries being arrested, 

 and the insect remaining in an immature con- 

 dition, devotes itself to the care of its com- 

 panions. Some also consider the soldier as a 

 sort of undeveloped male ; and more than one 

 student of zoolog}' regards the soldier and worker 

 as pupal forms corresponding to the chrysalis 

 condition of the butterfly. These questions re- 

 main to be settled ; and, as you will find in the 

 pursuit of this class of studies, a vast field is 

 open to every careful observer of Nature for in- 

 vestigation and study. 



If you have been so successful as to find a 

 female, deposit her carefully in a separate vial of 

 alcohol, and, cutting out a ciibe of earth that 

 contains the section of her cell, wrap it in your 

 handkerchief, if you have not a box of the light 

 size for it, and carry it in your hand ; it is of 

 sufficient value to be worth some labor and in- 

 convenience in securing it for your cabinet. If 

 you will preserve some of the workers and 

 young alive in a small box with eai-th, or the 

 fragments of their dwelling, you can place them 

 under the compound microscope when you re- 

 turn, study the interior of their bodies, aud 

 witness the c-outrac-lion and cxiiuiision of the 

 great doi-al vi'orl that >ri-vc> in>r,-ts tor a heart. 

 Their beautil'iilly ti-auspaiviit skin enables us to 

 investigate their internal anatomy while their 

 vital functions are in full operation. 



You will find it most convenient to place the 

 insect to be examined in a " live-box," as it is 

 called, aud if you have not got one, you can 

 easily make a good substitute out of a strong 

 pill-box and two round pieces of thin glass. 

 Push the bottom of the box out, then fit both of 

 the pieces of glass to the size of the inside of the 

 cover; tliis you can easily do, if they are too 

 large, by nipping oft' very small bits around the 

 edge with a pair of common pliers. Now, cut a 

 hole in the cover of the box, leaving enough of a 

 rim to hold the glass cover pretty firmly ; wipe 

 both pieces of glass clean, and place the thicker, 

 if there be any difference, in the cover. Put 



