TEEMITES. 
203 
themselves in compact line around them. They attacked fiercely 
any intruding object, and as fast as their front ranks were de- 
stroyed, 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 
Anger 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 sacrificing themselves to its good 1 
1 PM. Trans., loc. cit 
