Termite

“ And now every termite in the dim, cavernous chamber began the battle dance Jim and Dennis had seen performed by the termite guard when it was confronted by the horde of ants. Not moving their feet, they commenced to sway back and forth, while long, rhythmic shudders convulsed their grotesque bodies. ”

“ The third kind of soldier was represented in the spectacle of termites with heads that were huge and conical, resembling bungs, or the tapered cylindrical corks with which one plugs a bottle. These, Denny knew from his studies, had been evolved by termite biology for the purpose of temporarily stopping up any breach in termitary mound-wall or tunnel while the workers could assemble and repair the chink with more solid and permanent building material. ”

“ The clashing jaws of the two termite soldiers at the door stopped for a moment. Jim and Dennis struggled to turn their heads—all of them they could move—to see what the cessation of jaw-clashing might mean.
Three worker termites squeezed past. They approached one of the line of paralyzed insect hulks, and sank their mandibles into a garden slug. They tugged at this until they had it under the live cistern of red liquid into which the spear had been thrust. ”

“ In order to understand the curious phenomena presented by the castes and variety of forms of a single species of termite, it is necessary to become acquainted with their food habits, which are very peculiar and may be described as communistic. Termites have the habit of eating their cast skins and even their dead companions, and in fact their system of keeping the nest clean seems to be that of eating the refuse of their own bodies till it no longer contains any digestible matter. This cannibalism is the more remarkable, as the will not eat other termites. ”

“ The feat was made possible because the sand used in making the concrete contained many fragments of sea shells which were dissolved by a powerful chemical excreted by the insects.
It is very difficult to dispose of termites by poison—that is, permanently. Races have risen here, for example, which seem to thrive on arsenic. The insect lives on the cellulose in wood. This must be digested by certain intestinal bacteria in the digestive tract. If these microörganisms can be poisoned the termite starves. At first at least 99 percent of the bacteria succumb to heavy doses of arsenic. ”

“ It was possible that even that terrific injury might not be fatal to a thing so great and flexible of brain, and so divorced from the ills as well as the powers of the flesh. But for the moment at least it was helpless, an inert mass on the patient backs of the termite team.
"To the acid vat," snapped Jim. "We'll make our last stand there."
Dodging the nearest snapping mandibles, Denny ran beside his companion to where the termite, dead now, with its distended abdomen deflated and the last of the acid trickling from the hole caused by Jim's spear, still hung head down from the ceiling. ”

“ I mean the termite, a little insect not unlike an ant, which, in spite of its minuteness, does more damage than the voracious locust (still able to constitute a plague) , and may work more destruction than a troop of elephants devastating the fields. It is one of the most omnipresent and persistent of injurious insects. Whatever the vigour of plant life creates will fall before the sharp jaws of the termites, and they are not less unsparing of the products of human art and industry. High above the grass-forest of the steppe they rear their conical earthen towers ”

“ Escherich spent three months in Ceylon studying the white ant. He describes thirty-five species of termite existing in Ceylon.
In the nest (the termetarium) of many of the species of white ants there are tunnels and chambers devoted to the growing of a certain fungus—real fungus gardens. Sometimes two different species of termite inhabit the same nest, or termites and ants. They live in different galleries which intermingle but never open into each other. If by the breaking of a wall they should come together fierce battles ensue. ”

“ In India it is very fond of cadukai (Tamil) wood, which is often used for railway sleepers. Round the holes it makes there is a black tinge, arising, probably, from the iron in its saliva acting on the gallic acid of the timber. Providing it meets with the wood it prefers, it is not very particular whether it is standing timber, or the beams of a residence.
The termite, or white ant, is a terrible destroyer of wood in nearly all tropical countries. There are many species [241] of termite, and all are fearfully destructive, being indeed the greatest pest of the country wherein they reside. ”

“ Since insects are normally winged creatures, it is evident that these flying termites represent the perfect forms of the termite colony--they are, in fact, the sexually mature males and females. The several forms of individuals in the termite com- munity are known as castes. An intensive search through the galleries 9f a termite nest might reveal, besides workers, soldiers, and the members of the winged brood in various stages of devel- opinent, a few individuals of still different kinds. ”

“ It has a pungent odor which, however, is characteristic of all termites and the ancestral cockroaches.
Between ants and termites there is perpetual war. Army ants, especially, try to raid termite nests to feed on the young whenever they can find any crack in the walls through which they can squeeze their bodies. But when there is any break in the nest the termite soldiers immediately arrange themselves in a circle around the opening while workers bring up little slabs of earth from the interior to patch the wall. ”

“ In all my travels in Africa, I never had anything attacked by the termite; but during my stay of seven months in Great Britain, I had a suit of woolen clothes completely eaten up by moths in Liverpool.
Drivers
Drivers, as every person already knows, are black ants, whose reputation is as bad for attacking living animals, and even human beings, as the termites' for attacking clothing. This creature, like its white cousin, is also an instrument in the hands of Providence as a sanitary means, and to the reverse of the other is carnivorous, feeding upon all flesh whether fresh or putrified. ”

“ The soldier termite is the most extraordinary feature of termite biology It is more varied than any of the other castes, so that most of the species of termites can be best distinguished by their soldiers. The chief feature of the soldier is an extraordinary development of the head, or of the head and mandibles. ”

“ The rnyceliurn lires on decaying wood, and it is the rnycelial part of the fungus that the termites cultivate. They feed on srnall spore-bearing stalks that sprout from the threads of the rnyceliurn. The substraturn of the termite fungus beds is generally made of pellets of partly digested wood pulp. The nests that termites erect above the ground include the most rernarkable architectural structures produced by insects. ”

“ The flabby, tallow-like body makes this insect sufficiently repulsive, but it is for quite another reason that the white ant is the worst abused of all living vermin in warm countries. The termite lives almost exclusively upon wood; and the moment a tree is cut or a log sawn for any economical purpose, this insect is upon its track. One may never see the insect, possibly, in the flesh, for it lives underground ”

“ The one we have just examined appears to be formed of earth, kneaded up with a kind of gum which the insect secretes. In the subterranean passages of a termite's nest there are arches which seem to be composed of morsels of wood stuck together by some sticky matter. These insects [234] are omnivorous, and, like ants, take care to lay up abundant stores of provisions. ”

“ Scavengers of a hundred kinds remove decaying animal matter—from the carcass of the fallen elephant to the broken wing of a gnat—eating it, or carrying it out of sight, and burying it in the deodorizing earth. And these countless millions of termites perform a similar function for the vegetable world, making away with all plants and trees, all stems, twigs, and tissues, the moment the finger of decay strikes the signal. ”

“ When a termite wishes food it strokes the body of another individual with its antennae, and the specimen thus caressed exudes from the posterior or from the anterior part of the body a drop of matter, which is eaten by the hungry one. ”

“ It will be seen from the above account that termites differ from true ants in one very important particular, namely, that they are as active and free-moving in the larval and pupal states as in the mature, or imago, one. “The termite society,” indeed, “consists, for the most part, of wingless sexually immature individuals, children potentially of both sexes, which do not grow up.” [6] Out of the majority of these the worker caste, when it exists, is formed, whilst a much lesser number develop into the large-headed, long-jawed soldiers. ”

“ Dry wood consists mostly of a substance called cellulose, which, while it is related to the starches and sugars, is a carbo- hydrate that is entirely indigestible to ordinary animais, though eaten in abundance as a part of all vegetable food. The termites, however, are unusually gifted, not with a special digestive enzyme, but with minute, one- celled, cellulose-digesting protozoan parasites that lire in their alimentary canals. It is through the agency of their intestinal inhabitants, then, that the termites are able to lire on a diet of dead wood. ”

“ Termite Ravages.—In countries whose climate is favourable to their constitutions certain kinds of Termites become of great importance to our own species. Owing to their taste for woody matter and to their habit of working in concealment, it is no uncommon thing for it to be discovered that Termites have obtained access to a building and have practically destroyed the wooden materials used in its construction ”

“ One of the three flicked drops of the reddish stuff onto the inert slug, till it was well sprinkled. Then they dragged the carcass back to the termite-ruler.
They got it there barely in time. In a matter of seconds after they had dropped it before the monarch, the slug had collapsed into a half-liquid puddle of decomposed protoplasm on the floor. One of the main functions—if not the main function—of the red acid, it seemed, was to act as a powerful digestive juice for His Majesty's food, predigesting it before it was taken into the feeble body for nourishment. ”

“ Scarcely any thing perishable on land escapes the termite, or in water, the worm; and it is from thence evident, that these animals are designed by nature to rid both of incumbrances, which in tropical climates would be attended with putrefaction and disease. ”

“ Always they keep hidden and secret. Always they work from within, which is why walls and boards they have devoured look whole: the outer shell has been left untouched and all the core consumed."
"Can't you get at the beasts in the laboratory?" asked Jim.
"No. If you put them into glass boxes to watch them, they manage to corrode the glass so it ceases to be transparent. And they can bore their way out of any wood, or even metal, containers you try to keep them in. The termite seems destined to remain a gruesome, marvelous, possibly deadly mystery." ”

“ In sectioning a larval specimen of the fly-like termite-guest known as Termitoxenia Heimi, Father Wasmann came across a typical exemplification of this embryological atavism. In the adult insect, a pair of oar-like appendages replace the wings characteristic of the Diptera (flies) . These appendages are organs of exudation, which elaborate a secretion whereof [Pg 49] the termites are very fond, and thereby render their possessors welcome guests in the nests of their hosts. ”

“ This means that 99 percent of the termites are killed. But always there are a few exceptionally tough bacteria with a high resistance to the poison. Their descendants in a few generations apparently become almost entirely resistant. With their help a new race of termites comes into existence.
Ordinarily termites attack only dead or dying wood. Some of them, however, carry fungi around with them to kill their own wood. The Canal Zone insects can dispose of living trees. ”

“ This feature in the termite economy bas a double convenience, for not only are the young inexpensively fed, but the gathering of the food automatically enlarges the home to accommodate the increasing need for space of the growing family. That insects should gnaw tunnels through dead wood is not surprising ”

“ This contained numerous heads of a large-eyed termite (Hodotermes) , which is common in many parts of the country, but mixed with these was a good handful of quartz pebbles and sand. On seeing this, not only the origin, but also the probable truth of the natives' assertion became obvious at once; for when digging into the nests of ants and termites, and licking up the insects with its sticky tongue, the Pangolin must necessarily swallow a considerable amount of earth and gravel as well. ”

“ Finally, there are also found in the termite colonies certain wingless individuals that otherwise resemble the winged forms, and which, as the latter, are functionally capable of reproduction when mature. ”

“ Soil insects and other arthropods, by their burrowing activities, are also instrumental in loosening the soil texture and thereby facilitating soil aeration and the percolation of water. The action of termites in warmer countries is discussed by Drummond in his “Tropical Africa,” who compares the rôle of subterranean termites to that of earthworms. The great abundance of ants renders them also significant in this same respect, and very few species are direct enemies of the agriculturist. ”