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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 Excerpt:...one subst1tut1on form 1s developed, but when both perish, from ten to forty substitutes appear, according to the size of the colony. In all, three types of reproductive forms are recognized: first form, true kings and queens, with functional wings or their remnants; second form, substitute males or females, with short wing pads; third form, ergatoid, or worker-like, males or females, without wings, this type being rather rare. In certain tropical species there are two types of soldiers, and two of workers; so that adults of either sex may occur under seven different forms in the same colony. Origin of Castes.--Grassi maintains that all the forms are alike at birth except as regards sex, and that the differences between worker and soldier, which are independent of sex, depend probably upon nutrition. Grassi attributes all the diversities of caste, except the sexual ones, to the character and amount of the food. C. B. Thompson states that at hatching there are two kinds of nymphs (1) the "reproductive," which develop into the fertile castes, and (2) the "worker-soldier" nymphs, which become the sterile castes; these two types being distinguishable by internal differences in the brain, compound eyes, and sex organs. Food.--The food of termites is of six kinds: (1) wood; (2) matter emitted from the oesophagus or rectum, termed respectively stomodaeal and proctodaeal food; (3) cast skins and other exuvial stuff; (4) the bodies' of their companions; (5) saliva; (6) water. Of these the proctodaeal food is the favorite. Nymphs receive at first only saliva; later they get stomodaeal and proctodaeal food until, finally, they are able to eat wood--the staple food of a termite. American Species.--Our common termite is Reticulitermes flavipes, which...