PSE UDONE UR OP TERA. 



147 



being elected by the workers kings and queens of new colonies ; those not thus selected 

 soon perish. The workers immediately enclose the king and queen in a small chamber 

 of clay suitable to their size, into which at first they leave but one small entrance, 

 large enough for themselves and the soldiers to go in and out, but too small for the 

 exit of the royal pair. 

 . It is not until this time that the marriage of the royal pair takes place. The queen 

 then lays her eggs, at the rate of sixty a minute, which would amount to eighty 

 thousand in a day. The eggs are taken up by the workers as soon as they are laid 

 and placed by them in a small nursery which they in the meantime have constructed 

 at places four or five feet in a straight line from the royal chamber. Here the young 

 are carefully attended and fed until they are able to shift for themselves, and take their 

 turn in working for the interests of the community. 



Of the faithful services rendered by the workers to the queen, Smeathman bears 

 witness, saying, "These faithful subjects never abandon their charge even in the last 

 distress ; for whenever I took out the royal chamber, and, as I often did, preserved it 

 for some time in a large glass bowl, all the attendants continued running in one direc- 

 tion around the king and queen with the utmost solicitude, some of them stopping in 

 every circuit at the head of the latter as if to give her something. When they came 

 to the extremity of the abdomen they took the eggs from her and carried them away, 

 and piled them carefully together in some part of the chamber, or in the bowl under 

 or behind any pieces of broken clay which lay most convenient for the purpose." 



It appears, from the observations of Mr. H. J. Hubbard on the white ants of 

 Jamaica, that the young are fed upon prepared food which is stored up in the form 

 of very hard and tough rounded masses, evidently composed of comminuted wood, 

 some nests containing many pounds weight of them. Besides these lumps, adds Dr. 

 Hagen, there is prepared for the young white ants another kind of food, probably 

 partaken of by the youngest larvje. Among the eggs occurred a large number of very 

 small, hard, round bodies, which were recognized by Professor Farlow as the sclerotium 

 of a fungus. 



Stjb-Oedeb II. — Odonata. 



The sub-order Odonata and the family Libbllulid^ are co-extensive. The group 

 comprises the dragon-flies, of which the larger kinds are called devil's darning needles, 

 a,nd sometimes mosquito hawks. 

 Looking at the dragon-flies in the 

 winged or imago state we observe 

 some notable differences which we 

 have not met with in our ascent 

 from the Perlidse. In the first 

 place the large, spherical thorax has 

 some remarkable features. The pro- 

 thorax is very small and collar-like, 

 while the pieces which in the Platyp- 

 tera form broad, flat areas, are in the 

 dragon-flies minute, and the upper 

 part of the thorax is in reality formed 

 of the side pieces which are enor- 

 mously developed. The dragon-flies literally live on the wing 



Fig. 211. — Libellula trimcumlcUa, dragon-fly. 



they never walk, and 



