9 6 
THE STUDY OF INSECTS , 
Fig. 104.— Ter tries 
Jlapives, worker. 
Fig. 105.— Ter met 
Jlavipes , soldier. 
there build nests or mounds sometimes twelve feet high, or 
make roundish nests several feet thick on trees. Our 
Northern species (Termes Jlavipes) lives in old logs and 
stumps, or under stones in the ground. 
A remarkable thing about the White-ants is the way they 
are divided into classes, each class fitted to do a certain work 
for the colony. First, there 
is the class of workers (Fig. 
104), which is constituted of 
both sexes: they are wingless, 
and of a dirty-white color, 
and while they resemble true 
ants somewhat, their waists 
are thicker. Their business is 
to bring food for everybody, 
feed and bring up the young 
termites, and build nests. 
Second, there is the class 
called soldiers (Fig. 105): these too are of both sexes and 
wingless, and look somewhat like the workers, only their 
heads are tremendous in size, being often nearly as long as 
the rest of the body, and their jaws are large and powerful. 
Third, is the royal class called kings and queens . It would 
have been better to have called them fathers and mothers, 
as they are the parents of the colony, and do not rule it. 
This class when grown have wings which lie flat upon the 
back when at rest, and may be twice as long as the body. 
In May or June in our common species this class swarms 
forth from all the nests of the neighborhood. After a flight 
of some distance the wings are shed, and a king chooses 
some queen near him and proposes that they start a king¬ 
dom of their own. But like mortal kings and queens they 
cannot reign unless a kingdom is found for them, and so 
millions of these royal pairs die because they have no sub¬ 
jects. But sometimes a fortunate couple is discovered by 
some termite workers, who at once take possession of the 
