NEUROPTERA. 405 
soldiers are the pupe. M. de Quatrefages admits that the soldiers 
are the neuters, and that the workers are recruited both from the 
larve and from the pupe. It may be admitted, with other natu- 
ralists, that the soldiers and the workers are neuters: the first, 
abortive males; the second, abortive females. Here is, indeed, what 
M. Lespés has observed in the termites of the Landes. Among 
these insects, the most numerous are the workers: their size is 
that of a large ant, and their duties are to excavate galleries, to 
search for provisions, and to take care of the eggs, the larvee, and 
the pupze. The workers have a rounded head and short mandibles, 
and are blind. The soldiers, less numerous, have an enormous 
head,—nearly as big as the rest of their body,—very strong, crossed 
mandibles, and are blind like the workers. Anatomy showed M. 
Lespés that both are neuters—that is, the soldiers, males, and the 
workers, females, with aborted organs. 
The larvee of the females much resemble the workers. Those 
which are to become males or females are distinguished from those 
which are to become neuters by very slight rudiments of wings, 
and their pupe show already imperfect wings, hidden in cases ; 
furthermore, they have eyes hidden under the skin. The males and 
females alone have eyes; they also have wings, which they lose 
immediately after the coupling. Those which proceed from the 
pupe with long wing-cases become small kings and queens after 
their swarming, which takes place at the end of May. The pupe 
with short wing-cases become perfect in the month of August, and 
produce larger males and females, which become kings and queens. 
All these couples are collected by the neuters; and the queens, 
large and small, set to work immediately to lay. The largest are 
much the more fruitful. The workers do not seem to take any 
care of them at all. With the exception of this last peculiarity, 
everything probably goes on in the same manner with the exotic 
termites ; but with the latter the queen is an object of worship. 
Fig. 381 represents the four types of the republic of the Termes 
lucifugus. On the left is a worker, on the right a soldier, in the 
centre a winged male; all three very much magnified, the lines 
drawn by their side showing the natural size. Below the male is 
the pregnant queen (D D D D), of a species of which we are about 
to speak, of the natural size. 
