TERMlTlM. 
117 
It is a most striking thing to consider that the control of the whole 
system of development is in the hands of the lowest of all, the workers, 
and to the philosopher, the social system com¬ 
pares favourably with the pitch of development 
reached by the human race. New nests are pro¬ 
vided for very simply. At certain seasons, 
immense numbers of winged males and females 
emerge. They are clumsy insects, and fly badly. 
They rise in a cloud and are at once attacked by 
innumerable birds and enemies. Those that 
escape shed their wings at the suture and couple. 
They then get into shelter and start a new nest if 
possible ; the female lays eggs, the eggs hatch 
to workers and the new nest starts. In spite 
of the immense numbers produced, few such 
females escape to found nests. The emergence 
of these sexual winged individuals is constantly 
observed during the rainy months, and appears 
to occur after heavy rain when the air is still. 
A small opening is made in the surface of the 
soil and immense numbers of the winged insects 
pour out, crowding one after the other. As they 
emerge they attempt to fly and flutter upwards in a cloud, a phenome¬ 
non very quickly observed and one which attracts the attention of 
birds. Many cannot fly on emergence but run on the soil first and 
these are the prey of ants which at once carry them off living. The 
phenomenon strikes one as curiously interesting, the immense num¬ 
ber of individuals pouring out, their feeble upward flight into the air 
where they become the food of birds, the hasty death of those that do not 
at once fly, carried off living to the nests of ants and there devoured; 
there is an immense waste of life, and the appearance of these winged 
termites is the signal for so great a gathering of ants and birds that one 
imagines it to be a well-known thing for which they are on the look-out 
at this season. Very few have a chance of surviving and even those which 
shed their wings do not escape, being the more readily carried off by ants. 
The nest is a most remarkable structure, consisting of numberless 
chambers and galleries, the walls of a moderately hard substance which 
Fig. 49— Termes 
OBESUS, QUEEN. 
