Sh PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
they have four wings, like the female ants they scon cast 
them; but they may then be distinguished from the 
blind larvae, pupee, and neuters, by their large and pro- 
minent eyes*. 
The first establishment of a colony of Termites takes 
place in the following manner. In the evening, scon 
after the first tornado, which at the latter end of the dry 
season proclaims the approach of the ensuing rains, these 
animals, having attained to their perfect state, im which 
they are furnished and adorned with two pair of wings, 
emerge from their clay-built citadels by myriads and 
myriads, to seek their fortune. Borne on these ample 
wings, and carried by the wind, they fill the air, enter- 
ing the houses, extinguishing the lights, and even some- 
times being driven on board the ships that are not far 
from the shore. The next morning they are discovered 
covering the surface of the earth and waters: deprived 
of the wings which before enabled them to avoid their 
numerous enemies, and which are only calculated to 
carry them a few hours, and looking like large mag- 
gots ; from the most active, industrious, and rapacious, 
they are now become the most helpless and cowardly 
beings in nature, and the prey of innumerable enemies, 
to the smallest of which they make not the least resist- 
ance. Insects, especially ants, which are always on the 
hunt for them, leaving no place unexplored; birds, rep- 
tiles, beasts, and even man himself, look upon this event 
as their harvest, and, as you have been told before, make. 
_ * The neuters in all respects bear a stronger analogy to the larvae 
than to the perfect insects; and, after all, may possibly turn out to 
be larva, perhaps of the males. Huber seems to doubt their being 
neuters. Nouv, Obs. it. 444, note *, 
