28o 



SANTAREM 



chiefly founded, makes little conical hillocks of friable 

 structure, a foot or two in height, and is generally the 

 sole occupier. Another kind (Termes exiguus) builds 

 small dome-shaped papery edifices. Many species live on 

 trees, their earthy nests, of all sizes, looking like ugly 

 excrescences on the trunks and branches. Some are 

 wholly subterranean, and others live under the bark, or 

 in the interior of trees : it is these two latter kinds which 

 get into houses and destroy furniture, books, and clothing. 

 All hives do not contain a queen and her partner. Some 

 are new constructions, and, when taken to pieces, show 

 only a large number of workers occupied in bringing 

 eggs from an old overstocked Termitarium, with a small 

 detachment of soldiers evidently told off for their pro- 

 tection. 



A few weeks before the exodus of the winged males and 

 females a completed Termitarium contains Termites of 

 all castes and in all stages of development. On close 

 examination I found the young of each of the four orders 

 of individuals crowded together, and apparently feeding 

 in the same cells. The full-grown workers showed the 

 greatest attention to the young larvae, carrying them in 

 their mouths along the galleries from one cell to another, 

 but they took no notice of the full-grown ones. It was 

 not possible to distinguish the larvae of the four classes 

 when extremely young, but at an advanced stage it was 

 easy to see which were to become males and females, and 

 which workers and soldiers. The workers have the same 

 form throughout, the soldiers showed in their later stages 

 of growth the large head and cephalic processes, but much 

 less developed than in the adult state. The males and 

 females were distinguishable by the possession of rudi- 

 mentary wings and eyes, which increased in size after 

 three successive changes of skin. 



Thus I think I made out that the soldier and worker 

 castes are, like the males and females, distinct from the 

 egg ; they are not made so by a difference of food or 

 treatment daring their earlier stages, and they never 

 become winged insects. The workers and soldiers feed 

 on decayed wood and other vegetable substances ; I 

 could not clearly ascertain what the young fed upon, 

 but they are seen of all sizes, larvae and pupae, huddled 

 together in the same cells, with their heads converging 

 towards the bottom, and I thought I sometimes de- 



