PSEUDONEUROPTERA. 145 



capable of being elected kings or queens ; and nature has so ordered it, that they emi- 

 grate within a few weeks after they are elevated to this state, and either establish new 

 kingdoms or perish within a day or two." 



Latreille also enumerates four sorts of individuals in Termes lucifugus, a troj)ical 

 form which has been introduced into France ; i. e., besides males and females, soldiers 

 and workers. In the South American white ants, however, this number is much 

 exceeded, and the differentiation of the individual is carried on, perhaps, to a much 

 greater extent than in any other known insects. We are indebted to Fritz Miiller, 

 who had more than a dozen living species at his disposition, for some curious details, 

 which he first published in a letter to Darwin. Miiller found that the species he 

 observed differed much more in their habits and in their anatomy than is generally 

 assumed. " In most species there are two sets of neuters, viz., laborers and soldiers ; 

 but in some species ( Calotermes) the laborers, and in others (Anqplotermes) the sol- 

 diers, are wanting. "With respect to these neuters I have come to the same conclusion 

 as that arrived at by Mr. Bates, viz., that, differently from what we see in social 

 Hymenoptera, they are not modified imagoes (sterile females) but modified larvse, which 

 undergo no further metamorphosis. This accounts for the fact first observed by Les- 

 p6s, that both the sexes are represented among the sterile (or so-called neuter) Termi- 

 tes. In some species of Calotermes the male soldiers may even externally be distin- 

 guished from the female ones. I have been able to confirm, in almost all our species, 

 the fact already observed by Mr. Smeathman a century ago, but doubted by most 

 subsequent writers, that in the company of the queen there lives always a king. 



" The most interesting fact in the natural history of these curious insects is the 

 existence of two forms of sexual individuals, in some (if not in all) of the species. 

 Besides the winged males and females, which are produced in vast numbers, and which, 

 leaving the termitary in large swarms, may intercross with those produced in other 

 communities, there are wingless males and females which never leave the termitary 

 where they are born, and which replace the winged males or females whenever a 

 community does not find in due time a true king or queen. Once I found a king (of 

 a species of Mitermes) living in company with as many as thirty-one such comple- 

 meutal females, as they may be called, instead of with a single legitimate queen." 

 Fritz Miiller then goes on to make the following reflection : " Termites would, no 

 doubt, save an extraordinary amount of labor if instead of raising annually myriads 

 of winged males and females, almost all of which (helpless creatures as they are) per- 

 ish in the time of swai-ming, without being able to find a new home, they raised solely 

 a few wingless males and females, which, free from danger, might remain in their native 

 termitary; and he who does not admit the paramount importance of intercrossing 

 must, of course, wonder why this latter manner of reproduction (by wingless individ- 

 uals) has not long since taken the place, through natural selection, of the production 

 of winged males and females. But the wingless individuals would of course have to 

 pair always with their near relatives, whilst by the swarming of the winged Termites 

 a chance is given to them for the intercrossing of individuals not nearly related." 



We will now turn to the matter of the internal economy of the termite commu- 

 nity. And here it may be said, that we actually know more of the habits of African 

 and Brazilian species than of our own, though the latter is so common in the United 

 States. So far as our own observation goes, the males and females of Termes flavipes 

 acquire their wings and ' swarm ' in Kentucky during the first week in May, occurring 

 in great numbers under the bark of stumps. They swarm about three or four weeks 



VOL. 11. — 10 



