ENTOMOLOGIST AND BOTANIST. 



267 



black insects that seem to have something' to do 

 witli the colony, but are furnished with long, 

 white shining wings? These are the males, 

 they arc hurrying down out of sight as quickly 

 as j)0ssible; you will never sec one of them 

 troubling himself about the care of the young. 

 Nor will you ever see the soldiers doing this 

 good Avork either; they, cowardly creatures, 

 have retreated into the burrows, and only occa- 

 sionally the head of one appears at an opening, 

 nearly tilling it, and obstructing the way of this 

 nurse-worker, who is obliged to kick and punch 

 the military blockhead repeatedly before he will 

 suffer her to pass with her load. 



Make 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 wlica 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, 

 Avho arc so earnest in their duties that tliey have 

 removed almost all tlie young to the vaults be- 

 low. There are onl>- 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. Whci'care 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, liad not the teriible 

 cartlujnake (from their point of view) unroofed 

 the edifice and bewildered tlicir faculties, they 

 would have boldly combated tlic i)iratical ants, 

 and sacrificed uidicsitatingly tlicir own limbs 

 and lives to save the helpless oH'spring of tlicir 

 (jucen. See tliis poor worker, with its feeble 

 might endeavoring to rescue the little one from 

 the powerful jaws of tlie marauder; regardless 

 of danger and wounds, slic opposes the two or 

 three strong black kidnappers, but at last her 

 soft body is gaslied, and her tender limbs are 

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

 ficed her life in the vain attempt. 



And now the surface of the Termite's home is 

 descried ; most of the young liavc been saved ; 

 the soldiers are kcciiing guard in the subter- 

 ranean galleries, and the workers arc ministering 

 to their little charges in the dark nurseries 

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

 the space formerly covered by the slab, and slice 

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

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

 of the labyrinth of burrows, galleries and cham- 

 bers of the Termite's home. Wc shall pei-haps 



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 tlu; workers, but licr 

 abdomen is expanded to a prodigious size, mak- 

 ing it impossible for her to leaA'e her cell, in 

 which she is carefully tended and fed by the 

 workers. They remove also the young as soon 

 as they are born, and take the entire charge of 

 nursing tlicm 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 zoology regards the soldier and worker 

 as pupal forms corresponding to the clir}'salis 

 condition of the butterfly. Tli£se 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 cube of earth that 

 contains the section of her cell, wrap it in your 

 handkerchief, if you have not a box of the right 

 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 earth, or the 

 fragments of their dwelling, you can place them 

 under the compound microscope when you re- 

 turn, study the int<;rior of their bodies, and 

 witness the contraction and expansion of the 

 great dorsal vessel that serves insects for a heart. 

 Their beautifully transparent skin enables us to 

 investigate their internal anatomy while tlicir 

 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, and 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. 

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

 the pieces of glass to the size of the iiisule of the 

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

 large, by nipping ofl' very small bits around the 

 edge witli 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 iiieces of glass clean, and place the thicker, 

 if there be any difference, in the cover. Put 



