. Australian insects. Insects. ORTHOPTERA. 2H She is simply a mass of egg tubes; and, looked after and fed by the attendant workers, she devotes her life to laying- eggs, which, like grains of sugar, are carried away and piled up by the workers in adjacent chambers under the nursery. From these eggs develop tiny white specks of matter that gradually develop by a regular series of moults into workers, soldiers, and immature winged forms; the latter have large rounded bodies and rounded wing pads representing tlu^ future wings. Supplementary Queens are sometimes found that have never gone throug
. Australian insects. Insects. ORTHOPTERA. 2H She is simply a mass of egg tubes; and, looked after and fed by the attendant workers, she devotes her life to laying- eggs, which, like grains of sugar, are carried away and piled up by the workers in adjacent chambers under the nursery. From these eggs develop tiny white specks of matter that gradually develop by a regular series of moults into workers, soldiers, and immature winged forms; the latter have large rounded bodies and rounded wing pads representing tlu^ future wings. Supplementary Queens are sometimes found that have never gone through the winged stage; they have the general structure and large corrugated bodies of the mature queens. The typical white ants' nest, known as a Termitarium, usually consists in the first instance of a mass of woody laminated material that might be likened to papier- mache, originally a stump or portion of a log that has been. Fig. 10. —(iueen Termite (C. {Ternies) lacteus) (Froggatt). Showing iier in the Royal Cell or Queen's Chamber. ("Agricultural Gazette," ) chewed up and voided in the form of a mortar-like substance. This termitarium is full of irregular galleries running like a network all through the mass, with the means of exit run- ning out under the nest; a mass of stout terraced structure above the ground level surrounds the Royal Chambers, which might be likened in size and shape to an invertecl saucer, from which the enclosed Queen cannot escape, but the attendant workers can pass to and fro. Above this is a rounded oval mass often as big as a child's head, which resembles stiff brown paper folded round and round, full of fine openings, and is easily crumbled up; this, for want of a better word, I call the nursery, as it contains all the minute larvae as they emerge from the eggs. The formation above the nursery is more irregular, and terminates in a rounded cap. The whole of this woody structure is covered with a stout enveloping wall of fine clay,
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