PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



29 



dividuals — workers or larvae— nymphs or pupae — neuters or 

 soldiers — males and females. 



1. The workers or larvae, answering to the hymenopterous 

 neuters, are the most numerous and at the same time the most 

 active part of the community ; upon whom devolves the office 

 of erecting and repairing the buildings, collecting provisions, 

 attending upon the female, conveying the eggs when laid to 

 what Smeathman calls the nurseries, and feeding the young 

 larvae till they are old enough to take care of themselves. 

 They are distinguished from the soldiers by their diminutive 

 size, by their round heads and shorter mandibles. 



2. The nymphs or pupae. These were not noticed by 

 Smeathman, who mistook the neuters for them : — they differ 

 in nothing from the larvae, and probably are equally active, 

 except that they have rudiments of wings, or rather the wings 

 folded up in cases (pterothecce). They were first observed by 

 Latreille; nor did they escape the author of the MS. above al- 

 luded to, who mistook them for a different kind of larvae. 



3. The neuters, erroneously called by Smeathman pupae. 

 These are much less numerous than the workers, bearing the 

 proportion of one to one hundred, and exceeding them greatly 

 in bulk. They are also distinguishable by their long and large 

 head, armed with very long subulate mandibles. Their office 

 is that of sentinels ; and when the nest is attacked, to them is 

 committed the task of defending it. These neuters are quite 

 unlike those in the Hymenoptera perfect societies, which seem 

 to be a kind of abortive females, and there is nothing analogous 

 to them in any other department of Entomology. 



4. and 5. Males and females, or the insects arrived at their 

 state of perfection, and capable of continuing the species. There 

 is only one of each in every separate society; they are ex- 

 empted from all participation in the labours and employments 

 occupying the rest of the community, that they may be wholly 

 devoted to the furnishing of constant accessions to the popula- 

 tion of the colony. Though at their first disclosure from the 

 pupa they have four wings, like the female ants they soon 

 cast them ; but they may then be distinguished from the blind 

 larvae, pupae, and neuters, by their large and prominent eyes. 1 



1 The neuters in all respects bear a stronger analogy to the larva? than to the 

 perfect insects ; and, after all, may possibly turn out to be larva?, perhaps of the 



