PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



37 



tinued watching them for above an hour, during which time 

 their numbers appeared neither to increase nor diminish : — 

 the soldiers, however, who quitted the line of march and 

 acted as sentinels, became much more numerous before he 

 quitted the spot. The larvae and neuters of this species are 

 furnished with eyes. 



The societies of Termes lucifugus, discovered by Latreille 

 at Bourdeaux, are very numerous ; but instead of erecting ar- 

 tificial nests, they make their lodgement in the trunks of pines 

 and oaks, where the branches diverge from the tree. They 

 eat the wood the nearest the bark, or the alburnum, without 

 attacking the interior, and bore a vast number of holes and 

 irregular galleries. That part of the wood appears moist, 

 and is covered with little gelatinous particles, not unlike 

 gum-arabic. These insects seem to be furnished with an acid 

 of a very penetrating odour, which perhaps is useful to them 

 for softening the wood. 1 The soldiers in these societies are as 

 about one to twenty-five of the labourers. 2 The anonymous 

 author of the observations on the Termites of Ceylon seems 

 to have discovered a sentry-box in his nests. " I found," 

 says he, " in a very small cell in the middle of the solid mass, 

 (a cell about half an inch in height, and very narrow,) a larva 

 with an enormous head. Two of these individuals were in 

 the same cell : — one of the two seemed placed as sentinel at 

 the entrance of the cell. I amused myself by forcing tJie 

 door two or three times : — the sentinel immediately ap- 

 peared, and only retreated when the door was on the point 

 to be stopped up, which was done in three minutes by the 

 labourers." 



I hope this account has reconciled you in some degree to 

 the destructive Termites : — I shall next introduce you to 

 social insects, concerning most of which you have probably 

 conceived a more favourable opinion — I mean those which 

 constitute the second class of perfect societies, whose workers 

 are not larvas, but neuters. These all belong to the Hy- 

 menoptera order of Linne : — there are four kinds of insects in 



1 Latr. Hist. Nat, xiii. 64. 2 N. Diet. D'Hist. Nat. xxii, 57, 58. 



D 3 



