SOCIAL INSECTS 123 
may be well excused for sometimes doing a little private 
slaughter among their healthy relatives, as they are said to be 
apt to do when excited. It is on the whole a good thing that 
human social life has evolved on rather different lines, in spite 
of the horrors of war and other matters which an intelligent 
Termite would deprecate. 
Winged queens and kings swarm from the nest at certain 
seasons of the year, and any pair fortunate enough to escape 
the appetites of birds or other foes is capable of starting a fresh 
society. 
The Light-shunning Termite 
(Termes lucifugus) is the second and 
only other European species. <A 
society consists of many thousands of 
individuals, and there are workers as 
well as soldiers. Winged queens and 
kings swarm from the nest as in other 
cases, but in Sicily these all perish, so 
far as yet known. It seems probable, 
however, that the existing societies 
there were founded in the first in- 
stance by royal pairs, though Grassi 
has never found these in any of the _ Fig-x099.—Light-Shunning Termite (Termes 
a ae lucifugus). a, Young larva; 8, adult worker; 
very numerous Sicilian nests he has  ¢ soldier; p, winged adult; © and F, reserve 
examined. In France, however, the fi 3o vinsage” Actual sis indicated 
investigations of Perris and Perez 
show that in that country communities can be founded in the © 
usual way. Since fresh individuals are constantly being produced 
in the Sicilian nests, we naturally enquire how this is possible in 
the absence of true queens and kings, ze. termites which at one 
time possessed wings and were fully adult. The answer is found 
in the existence of remarkable castes which may be termed ‘‘sub- 
stitution royalties”. Here, as in other species with complex social 
life, the workers seem to be aware of the necessity for continued 
egg-production, and appear to feed some of the nymphs in such 
a way that they become capable of continuing their kind, though 
wings are not developed, and certain immature characters are 
retained. The substitution queens and kings are not all alike, 
as may be gathered to some extent from fig. 1099. Even this 
apology for a king is rarely found in a nest, a possible explana- 
