Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/81

 kinds which get into houses and destroy furniture, books, and clothing. All hives do not contain a queen and her partner. Some are new constructions, and, when taken to pieces, show only a large number of workers occupied in bringing eggs from an old overstocked Termitarium, with a small detachment of soldiers evidently told off for their protection.

A few weeks before the exodus of the winged males and females a completed Termitarium contains Termites of all castes and in all stages of development. On close examination I found the young of each of the four orders of individuals crowded together, and apparently feeding in the same cells. The full-grown workers showed the greatest attention to the young larvæ, carrying them in their mouths along the galleries from one cell to another, but they took no notice of the full-grown ones. It was not possible to distinguish the larvæ of the four classes when extremely young, but at an advanced stage it was easy to see which were to become males and females, and which workers and soldiers. The workers have the same form throughout, the soldiers showed in their later stages of growth the large head and cephalic processes, but much less developed than in the adult state. The males and females were distinguishable by the possession of rudimentary wings and eyes, which increased in size after three successive changes of skin.

Thus I think I made out that the soldier and worker castes are, like the males and females, distinct from the egg; they are not made so by a difference of food or treatment during their earlier stages, and they never