TERMITES 



himself in his bereavement, by the adoption of a whole 

 harem of young short-winged females. But if he too 

 should be lost, then the workers give the succession to 

 one or more pairs of the second- or third-caste repro- 

 ductive forms, to whom they grant the royal prerogatives. 

 The progeny of any of the fertile castes will include the 

 caste of the parents and all castes below them. In other 

 words, only winged forms can produce the whole series of 

 castes; short-winged parents can not produce long-winged 

 offspring; and wingless parents can not produce winged 



Fig. 82. The usual king (A) and queen (B), or winged repro- 

 ductive caste after having lost the wings (fig. 79), of Rtticuli- 

 termes flavipes. (From Banks and Snyder) 



offspring of any form; but both short-winged and wing- 

 less parents can produce soldiers and workers. It ap- 

 pears, therefore, that each imperfect fertile insect lacks 

 something in its constitution that is necessary for the pro- 

 duction of a complete termite individual. 



The production of constitutionally different castes 

 from the eggs of a single pair of parents would be a 



[141] 



