ANIMAL COMMUNITIES AND SOCIAL LIFE 159 
reproduction. The production of new individuals is the 
sole business of the fertile males and females; the workers 
build the nest and collect food, and the soldiers protect the 
community from the attacks of marauding insects. The 
egg-laying queen grows to monstrous size, being sometimes 
Fie. 98.—Termites. a, queen; 0, male; ce, worker; d, soldier. 
five or six inches long, while the other individuals of the 
community are not more than half or three quarters of 
an inch long. The great size of the queen is due to the 
enormous number of eggs in her body. 
The bumble-bees live in communities, but their social 
arrangements are very simple ones compared with those of 
the honey-bee. There is, in fact, among the bees a series 
of gradations from solitary to communal life. The inter- 
esting little green carpenter-bees live a truly solitary life. 
Each female bores out the pith from five or six inches of 
an elder branch or raspberry cane, and divides this space 
into a few cells by means of transverse partitions (Fig. 94). 
In each cell she lays an egg, and puts with it enough food 
—flower pollen—to last the grub or larva through its life. 
