. Insect architecture. Insects. WHITE ANTS. 291 reason to distrust so excellent a naturalist, in de- scribing what he saw, it is certain that they more commonly eat their way into the interior of the wood, and afterwards form the galleries, when they find that they have destroyed the wood till it will no longer afford them protection. But it is time that we should come to their prin- cipal building, which may, with some propriety, be called a city; and, according to the method we have followed in other instances, we shall trace their la- bours from the commencement. We shall begin with the ope
. Insect architecture. Insects. WHITE ANTS. 291 reason to distrust so excellent a naturalist, in de- scribing what he saw, it is certain that they more commonly eat their way into the interior of the wood, and afterwards form the galleries, when they find that they have destroyed the wood till it will no longer afford them protection. But it is time that we should come to their prin- cipal building, which may, with some propriety, be called a city; and, according to the method we have followed in other instances, we shall trace their la- bours from the commencement. We shall begin with the operations of the species which may be ap- propriately termed the Warrior (Termes fatalis, Linn, ; T. Bellicosus, Smeath.).. Termes beliicoms in the winged stale. We must premise, that though they have been termed white ants, they do not belong to the same order of insects with our ants; yet they have a flight resemblance to ants in their form, but more in their economy. Smeathman, to whom we owe our chief knowledge of the genus, describes them as consisting of kings, queens, soldiers, and workers, and is of opinion that the workers are larvae, the soldiers nymphac, and the kings and queens the per- fect insects. In this opinion, he coincides with Sparrmann* and others; but Latreille is inclined * Quoted by De Geer, vol. vii. S2. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Rennie, James, 1787-1867. London, M. A. Nattali
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840, booksubjectinsects, bookyear1846
