196 THE TERMITES. 



watched them for more than an hour without perceiving the 

 least decrease of strength iu the procession. 



The most important personage of the Termites' State is 

 obviously the queen, since on her existence depends the 

 existence of the whole nation. If the royal cell is removed 

 from a Termites' nest, the colony scatters or perishes. On 

 the other hand, the whole of the building can be destroyed 

 without any such result, provided only the royal cell is left 

 standing ; the remainder will be rebuilt. When the queen 

 dies the community would perish, were it not that the wise 

 insects prepare for such an emergency by keeping some 

 reserve-queens. " In each nest, in a little dwelling resembling 

 the royal cell, are two or three expectant queens, which 

 only receive their investiture on the death of the queen- 

 mother, and then begin to provide for the welfare and the 

 increase of the nation " (Hagen, loc. cit.). 



The queen lays in her cell an enormous number of eggs, 

 often as many as 80,000 in twenty-four hours, and these are 

 at once taken away by the serving workers and carried into 

 the surrounding cells. " An endless stream of k workers 

 moves round the floor of the royal cell, carrying the eggs into 

 the nurseries around. To shorten the journey little holes 

 are broken through all round at regular distances, and are 

 used for short cuts by the laden workers. The eggs them- 

 selves, differing according to the size of the species, 

 resembling either powdered sugar or the so-called ant-eggs, 

 are stored in the already-mentioned cells which have been 

 termed lying-in rooms one over another. All kinds of food 

 have been carried into special magazines for the first nourish- 

 ment of the young when hatched, and there are soon repre- 

 sentatives of all stages of development mixed confusedly 

 together ; it is a whirlpool of shapes, forms, and colors, 

 which, however, duly leads to a single species " (Hagen, 

 loc. cit.). 



The wedding flight of the Termites' males and females 

 resembles to a hair that of the ants. Hagen (loc. cit.j, at 

 once accurately and poetically, describes it in the following 

 fashion : 



" Let us place ourselves in a forest spot in the interior of 

 Brazil. Not far from a whispering brook a clearing begins, 

 the thicket opens and hems in a vale covered with under- 

 wood. Here and there several mounds of earth rise foot- 



