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SANTAREM 



with special organs of offence or defence in the form 

 of horny processes resembling pikes, tridents, and so 

 forth. Some species do not possess these extraordinary 

 projections, but have, in compensation, greatly lengthened 

 jaws, which are shaped in some kinds as sickles, in others 

 as sabres and saws. 



The course of human events in our day seems, un- 

 happily, to make it more than ever necessary for the 

 citizens of civilized and industrious communities to set 

 apart a numerous armed class for the protection of the 

 rest ; in this, nations only do what nature has of old 

 done for the Termites. The soldier Termes, however, 

 has not only the fighting instinct and function ; he is 

 constructed as a soldier, and carries his weapons not in 

 his hand, but growing out of his body. 



Whenever a colony of Termites is disturbed, the workers 

 are at first the only members of the community seen ; 

 these quickly disappear through the endless ramified 

 galleries of which a Termitarium is composed, and soldiers 

 make their appearance. The observations of Smeathman 

 on the soldiers of a species inhabiting tropical Africa are 

 often quoted in books on Natural History, and give a very 

 good idea of their habits. I was always amused at the 

 pugnacity displayed, when, in making a hole in the 

 earthy cemented archway of their covered roads, a host 

 of these little fellows mounted the breach to cover the 

 retreat of the workers. The edges of the rupture bristled 

 with their armed heads as the courageous warriors ranged 

 themselves in compact line around them. They attacked 

 fiercely any intruding object, and as fast as their front 

 ranks were destroyed, others filled up their places. When 

 the jaws closed in the flesh, they suffered themselves to 

 be torn in pieces rather than loosen their hold. It might 

 be said that this instinct is rather a cause of their ruin 

 than a protection when a colony is attacked by the well- 

 known enemy of Termites, the ant-bear ; but it is the 

 soldiers only which attach themselves to the long worm- 

 like tongue of this animal, and the workers, on whom 

 the prosperity of the young brood immediately depends, 

 are left for the most part unharmed. I always found, on 

 thrusting my finger into a mixed crowd of Termites, that 

 the soldiers only fastened upon it. Thus the fighting 

 caste do in the end serve to protect the species by sacri- 

 ficing themselves for its good. 



