WHITE ANTS. 
492 
cularly among the French. They resemble them, 
it is true, very much at a distance, but they run as 
fast or faster than any other insects of their size, 
and are incessantly bustling about their affairs. 
u The second order, or soldiers, have a very diffe- 
rent form from the labourers, and have been by 
some authors supposed to be the males, and the 
former neuters ; but they are, in fact, the same in- 
sects as the foregoing, only they have undergone a 
change of form, and approached one degree nearer 
to the perfect state. They are now much larger, 
being half an inch long, and equal in bulk to fifteen 
of the labourers. There is now likewise a most re- 
markable circumstance in the form of the head and 
mouth ; for in the former state the mouth is evi- 
dently calculated for gnawing and holding bodies ; 
but in this state, the jaws being shaped just like 
two very sharp awls a little jagged, they are inca- 
pable of any thing but piercing or wounding, for 
which purposes they are very effectual, being as 
hard as a crab’s claw, and placed in a strong horny 
head, which is of a nut brown colour, and larger 
than all the rest of the body together, which seems 
to labour under great difficulty in carrying it; on 
which account, perhaps, the animal is incapable of 
climbing up perpendicular surfaces. 
£t The third order, or the insect in its perfect 
state, varies its form still more than ever. The 
head, thorax, and abdomen, differ almost entirely 
from the same parts in the labourers and soldiers ; 
and, besides this, the animal is now furnished with 
