The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-01-26
The Termite Colonies.

Their communities are often of enOr-
nous size, containing many thousands
of individuals, classified, as ants are,
into workers, soldiers, winged males
and winged females. The workers are
sometimes absent from a colony. AS
rule, there is but one king and one
queen. The queen herself becomes
helpless and cannot leave the nest; but
she has her ladies in waiting" to at
tend her, so that she lacks nothing.
When the colonies swarm, which thew
do several times in a year, usually in
enormous numbers, birds follow them
in fiOcks, eagerly devOuring the ter
mites and destroying most of them.
Many survive, however, and a colony
begins, when several males court a
single female. The males quarrel and
fight till all but one is eliminated. and
he then flies off with his mate. When
they alight. it is the female that digs
the burrow; though the male helps n
little, as II to encourage her in this
work. There she lays her eggs, and a
new colony is founded. The females.
or queens. of certain African specie s
grow to be of enormous size. The alb
domen, swollen with eggs. may reach
the size Of a big potato. which it also
resembles; but the workers ere very
small. A queen may Law $4,000 eggs in
decaying log, is found from BaItimore
southwark, and becomes a serious nest
IN houses by eating out the wood of
beams and furniture. The books of a
school library in South Carolina were
entirely eaten out by termites in a
single summer. In Florida these in
sects do great damage TO the orange
trees by girdling them.
They Prepare Fine Soil,
or what use to us are termites and
true ants? In a large way the work of
both these classes of animals is prob
ably beneficial TO the soil. Most true
ants prefer what earthworms cannot
endure-a dry, sandy soil. They work
from early spring till late autumn.
Earthworms occur in the tropics in
moist places only; in the dry tropical
places they are replaced by some form
OF ants. which appear TO equal them as
soil preparers. The termites so dislike
the light that they live underground
and build a tunnel OF earth over them
wherever they go. They take long
journeys above ground in search of
food. Feeding on dead wood, which
they cannot always find on or beneath
the ground, they climb trees in search
of it, constructing their sheltering
earth tunnel as they advance. Millions
or tropical trees may be covered by
these tunnels. or galleries. The fine
soil of these tubes is literally plastered
over the tree surfaces. Every branch
or twig bears its tunnel usually about
the size of a small gas pipe, but occa-
sionally expanding into large chambers.
Every twig that falls is Immediately
incased in this mud, a very perfect cast
reproducing the smallest knots; but its
wood is entirely eaten away by the in
sects within. AS these galleries crum-
BILE to dust, they cover the earth's sur
afce with a finely pulveriZed and fertile
layer, brought up from the subsoil, and
then ground up and mixed with animal
juices, chiefly the saliva with which
the termites mix up this mortar"
What with earthworms, termites and
ants, the soil of the tropics is in a state
of perpetual motion, being constantly