THE LIFE OF TERMITES 
new arrivals hurriedly left, either disgusted or angry, I 
could not tell which by their minute expression. 
Then there were extraordinary fat lady ants, lying 
flat upon their backs, and with many attendants around 
them doing massage and general nursing with the greatest 
possible gentleness and care. If one wanted to see a 
great commotion, one had only to introduce into one of 
the chambers a larger ant of a different kind. What 
struck me was that the moment the fray was over, the 
termites at once, if perhaps a little more excitedly, 
resumed their work. 
What astonished me more than anything was that 
they would go on working as if nothing had happened, 
when I split open one of their dwellings, when many of 
the channels, which must have been normally in the dark, 
were then exposed to the light. This made me suspect 
that their vision was either missing altogether or was very 
defective. 
Nature is a wonderful organizer. The majority of 
termites, including warriors and workers, were sexless; 
that was perhaps why they were such good workers, as 
they had nothing to distract them. The males and females 
whose duty was merely to propagate and improve the 
race were provided temporarily with wings, so that they 
could fly away from the colony and disseminate their love 
among other winged termites of other colonies. The re¬ 
lation between different colonies was friendly. When 
their task was accomplished and flight was no more neces¬ 
sary for them, they conveniently and voluntarily shed their 
wings, leaving merely a small section of the wing root 
attached to the thorax. 
The local name for all kinds of termites was cupim, 
but technically they are known in the order Neorop- 
tera as Termes album . Another variety of insect, the 
Psocus domesticus , was also as destructive as the Termes 
album . 
137 
