The Termite soldier is a phenomenon to which it is difficult to find a parallel among Insects. The soldier in the true ants is usually not definitely distinguished from the worker, but it is possible that in the leaf-cutting ants, the so-called soldier may prove to be more similar in its nature to the Termite soldier. The soldiers of any one species of Termite are apparently {372}extremely similar to one another, and there are no intermediates between them and the other forms, except in the stages of differentiation. But we must recollect that but little is yet known of the full history of any Termite community, and it is possible that soldiers which in the stage of differentiation promise to be unsatisfactory may be killed and eaten,—indeed there is some evidence to this effect. There is too in certain cases some difference—larger or smaller size being the most important—between the soldiers of one species, which may possibly be due to the different stage of development at which their differentiation commenced. It would at present appear that, notwithstanding the remarkable difference in structure of the soldiers and workers of the white ants, there is not a corresponding difference of instinct. It is true that soldiers do more of certain things than workers do, and less of others, but this appears to be due solely to their possession of such very different structures; and we are repeatedly informed by Grassi that all the individuals in a community take part, so far as they are able, in any work that is going on, and we find also in the works of other writers accounts of soldiers performing acts that one would not have expected from them. The soldiers are not such effective combatants as the workers are. Dudley and Beaumont indeed describe the soldiers as merely looking on while the workers fight.[295] So that we are entitled to conclude that the actions of the soldiers, in so far as they differ from those of the rest of the community, do so because of the different organisation and structures of these individuals. We shall, when speaking of food, point out that the condition of the soldier in relation to food and hunger is probably different from that of the other forms.