1890.] Contribution to the Knowledge of the Termites. 1125 
Termite colony sends out yearly over a hundred thousand winged 
males and females, for the purpose of receiving back a single 
royal pair every two, three, or four years. 
The destruction made among these quite defenceless animals 
are numerous, from man to the common ant. As the difficulties 
are so great after the bride and groom have selected each other, 
and reached the nest for which a royal pair is wanted,— would it 
not seem more simple and more sure to keep all males and fe- 
males well protected at home? What an amount of work would 
the Termites be spared if they did not haveto bring up, year after 
year, those cloud-like swarms of winged animals which ascend 
from the large hill-nests.° 
Is it not striking that with all species, wherever they may 
exist, a simpler and surer way has not been found which should 
spare so much work, by developing through nympha-like males 
and females, by the way of natural selection ? 
Whenever one meets such questions, one may usually take 
Darwin, and hope to find the key of the solution. In this way, 
whoever occupies himself with this subject will find recorded in 
the 17th chapter of his book on “ The Variation of Animals and 
Plants under Domestication,” evidence which he will scarcely object 
to acknowledge has made in the highest degree probable, if not 
proved, the conclusion with which Darwin closes the chapter: 
“That the crossing of animals and plants which are not closely 
related to each other is highly beneficial, or even necessary, and 
that inter-breeding prolonged during many generations is highly 
injurious." 
Now with the majority of the Termite species of which sociable 
conditions are known, every colony possesses, with rare exceptions, 
a single royal pair, or sometimes a single king with two consorts. 
Therefore all in this state are grown-up males and females, broth- 
ers and sisters. The exclusive propagation through indigenous 
5 Rengger, Tollin, and others have spoken of the building up of new colonies by the 
swarming males and females, and the idea therefore that swarming would be 
absolutely necessary. I will not directly deny the ability of the males and females of 
Calotermes to go on living further in their own way, and to begin a new settlement. With 
all ies of Termes, Eutermes, Anoplotermes, of which the way of living I know to some 
degree, a winged pair would undertake the foundation of a new state with exactly the 
same success as a pair of new-born children which one had set out on a desert island. 
