Fecundity Of The White Ant

Some silk worms lay frorn 1,000 to 2,000 eggs, the wasp 3,000, the ant from 8,000 to 5,000. The number of eggs laid y the queen bee has long been in disute. Burmeister says from 5,000 to ,000, but Spence and ICirby both go hlm Beveral better, each declaring tht the [úeen of average fertility wlll lay no ess than 40,000, and probably as high aa 50,000 in one season. Termes fatalis, rhe white ant, is possessed of the most extraordlnary egg-laying propensities of any known creature. She often proluces 86,400 eggs in a single day. From ,he time when the white ant begins to ay until the egg-laying season is over - usually reckoned by entomologists as an exact lunar month - she produces 2,600,K)0 eggñ. In point of fecundity the white ant exceeds all other creatures.