The most wonderful of all the insects which belong to this order, however, are the termites. Often these creatures are known as white ants, and although they are not really ants, they are certainly very much like them. In Africa they make marvelous nests of clay, which are often twelve or fourteen feet high, and are so very large that a church, a parsonage, and a schoolroom have been built of clay slabs cut from the walls of a single termites' nest! These nests are made up of a wonderful series of chambers and galleries, and in the middle is the royal cell, in which the "king" and "queen" live. For in every termites' nest there is one perfect male and one perfect female, which are treated with very great respect, and have a kind of palace, as it were, all to themselves. And the rest of the insects in the nest are either imperfect males, which are called soldiers, or imperfect females, which are called workers. The "king" is quite a handsome and graceful insect, with broad and powerful wings; and the "queen," at first, is very much like him. But they never take more than one flight in the air, and as soon as that is over they actually break off their own wings close to their bodies! Then they burrow into the ground and begin to form a nest. Before long, the workers build the palace for the royal couple; and as soon as they have been shut up inside it the body of the queen swells to a most enormous size, so that she can no longer walk at all. This is because of the vast number of eggs, developing within her body, which she at once begins to lay at the rate of many thousands in a single day. As fast as she lays them they are carried off by the workers, which also take care of the little grubs that hatch out from them, just as bees do. The duty of the soldiers, as their name implies, is simply to fight, and if a hole is broken in the side of the nest they hurry to the spot at once, and begin to snap with their jaws at the foe. And these jaws are so sharp and so powerful that they can really give a very smart bite. The workers are a good deal smaller, and they have to build the nest and keep it in repair, to find food for the grubs, and take care of them, and wash them, and feed them, and do everything else that is necessary for the welfare of the colony. The grubs of these insects are fed upon dead wood, which is generally obtained from the trunks and branches of trees. But termites are sometimes very troublesome in houses, for they will devour the woodwork and the furniture and the books, leaving nothing but a thin shell of wood or paper behind them. There are a good many different kinds of these wonderful insects, and they are found in warm countries in all parts of the world.