Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/84

 devote their lives for the good of their species. But I have not explained how these neuter individuals, soldiers and workers, come to be distinct castes. This is still a knotty point, which I could do nothing to solve. Neuter bees and ants are known to be undeveloped females. I thought it a reasonable hypothesis, on account of the total absence of intermediate individuals connecting the two forms, that worker and soldier might be in a similar way female and male whose development had been in some way arrested. A French anatomist, however, M. LespésLespès [sic], believes to have found by dissection imperfect males and females in each of the castes. The correctness of his observations is doubted by competent judges; if his conclusion be true, the biology of Termites is indeed a mystery.