INSECTS
proves suitable, the female begins digging into the wood or into the ground beneath it, using her jaws as excavating tools, perhaps helped a little by the male, and soon a shaft is sunk at the end of which a cavity is hollowed out of sufficient size to accommodate the pair and to serve the purposes of a nest where true matrimony may begin.
Naturally it would be a very difficult matter to follow the whole course of events in the building of a termite community from one of these newly married pairs, for the termites live in absolute seclusion and any disturbance of their nests breaks up the routine of their lives and frustrates the efforts of the investigator. Many phases, however, of the life and habits of our common eastern United States termites, particularly of species belonging to the genus Reticulitermes, have been discovered and recorded in numerous papers by Dr. T. E. Snyder of the U. S. Bureau of Entomology, and, thanks to Doctor Snyder's work, we are able to give the following account of the life of these termites and the history of the development of a fairly complex community from the progeny of a single pair of insects.
The young married couple live amicably together in conjugal relations within their narrow cell. The male, perhaps, was forced to eject a would-be rival or two, but eventually the mouth of the tunnel is permanently sealed, and from now on the lives of this pair will be completely shut in from the outside world. In due time, a month or six weeks after the mating, the female lays her first eggs, six or a dozen of them, deposited in a mass on the floor of the chamber. About ten days thereafter the eggs hatch, and the new home becomes enlivened with a brood of little termites.
The young termites, though active and able to run about, are not capable of feeding themselves, and the parents are now confronted.with the task of keeping a dozen growing appetites appeased. The feeding formula
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