202 THE TERMITES. 



tumuli, reveals always a throng of eager, busy creatures. 

 .... White ants are small, pale-colored, soft-bodied 

 insects, having scarcely anything in common with the ants, 

 except their consisting, in each species and family, of several 

 distinct orders of individuals or castes which live together 

 in populous, organised communities. In both there are, 

 besides the males and females, a set of individuals of no 

 fully developed sex, immensely more numerous than their 

 brothers and sisters, whose task is to work and care for the 

 young brood. In true ants this class of the community con- 

 sists of undeveloped females, and when it comprises, as is 

 the case in many species, individuals of different structure, 

 the functions of these do not seem to be rigidly defined. 

 The contrary happens in the Termites, and this, perhaps, 

 shows that the organisation of their communities has reached 

 a higher stage, the division of labor being more complete. 

 The neuters in these wonderful insects are always divided 

 into two classes fighters and workers ; both are blind, and 

 each keeps to its own task, the one to build, make covered 

 roads, nurse the young brood from the egg upwards, take 

 care of the king and queen, who are the progenitors of the 

 whole colony, and secure the exit of the males and females 

 when they acquire wings and fly out to pair and disseminate 

 the race ; the other to defend the community against all 

 comers. Ants and Termites are also widely different in their 

 mode of growth, or, as it is called, metamorphosis. Ants, 

 in their early stage, are footless grubs which, before they 

 reach the adult state, pass through an intermediate quiescent 

 stage (pupa) enclosed in a membrane. Termites, on the 

 contrary, have a similar form when they emerge from the 

 egg to that which they retain throughout life, the chief 

 difference being the gradual acquisition of eyes and wings 

 in the sexual individuals during the later stages of growth. 

 Termites and true ants, in fact, belong to two widely dis- 

 similar orders of insects, and the analogy between them is 

 only a general one of habits. The mode of growth of 

 Termites and the active condition of their younger stages 

 (larva and pupa) make the constitution of their communities 

 much more difficult of comprehension than that of ants ; 

 hence how many castes existed, and what sort of individuals 

 they are composed of, if not males and females, have always 

 been puzzles to naturalists in the absence of direct observa- 



