204 THE TERMITES. 



often quoted in books on Natural History, and give a very 

 good idea of their habits. I was always amused at the 

 pugnacity displayed, when, in making a hole in the earthy 

 cemented archway of their covered roads, a host of these 

 little fellows mounted the breach to cover the retreat of the 

 workers. The edges of the rupture bristled with their armed 

 heads as the courageous warriors ranged themselves in com- 

 pact line around them. They attacked fiercely any intruding 

 object, and as fast as their front ranks were destroyed, 

 others filled up their places. When the jaws closed in the 

 flesh, they suffered themselves to be torn in pieces rather 

 than loosen their hold. It might be said that this instinct 

 is rather a cause of their ruin than a protection when a 

 colony is attacked by the well-known enemy of Termites, 

 the ant-bear ; but it is the soldiers only which attach them- 

 selves to the long wormlike tongue of this animal, and the 

 workers, on whom the prosperity of the young brood imme- 

 diately depends, are left for the most part unharmed. I 

 always found, on thrusting my finger into a mixed crowd 

 of Termites, that the soldiers only fastened upon it. Thus 

 the fighting caste do in the end serve to protect the species 

 by sacrificing themselves to its good. A family of Termites 

 consists of workers as the majority, of soldiers, and of the king 

 and queen. These are the constant occupants of a com- 

 pleted Termitarium. The royal couple are the father and 

 mother of the colony, and are always kept together closely 

 guarded by a detachment of workers in a large chamber in 

 the very heart of the hive, surrounded by much stronger 

 walls than the other cells. They are wingless, and both 

 immensely larger than the workers and soldiers. The queen, 

 when in her chamber, is always found in a paired condition, 

 her abdomen enormously distended with eggs, which, as fast 

 as they come forth, are conveyed by a relay of workers in 

 their mouths from the royal chamber to the minor cells 

 dispersed throughout the hive. The other members of a 

 Termes family are the winged individuals. These make 

 their appearance only at a certain time of the year, generally 

 in the beginning of the rainy season. It has puzzled 

 naturalists to make out the relationship between the winged 

 Termites and the wingless king and queen. It has also 

 generally been thought that the soldiers and workers are the 

 larvae of the others : an excusable mistake, seeing that they 



