arched, they help to support one another; and, while the interior large arches prevent them falling into the center, and keep the area open, the exterior building supports them on the outside. There are, comparatively speaking, few openings into the great area, and they, for the most part, seem intended only to admit that genial warmth into the nurseries which the dome collects. The interior building, or assemblage of nurseries, chambers, &c. has a flattish top or roof, without any perforation, which would keep the apartments below dry, in case through accident, the dome should receive any injury, and let in water; and it is never exactly flat and uniform, because they are always adding to it by building more chambers and nurseries; so that the divisions or columns, between the future arched apartments, resemble the pinnacles upon the fronts of some old buildings, and demand particular notice, as affording one proof, that for the most part the insects project their arches, and do not make them, as I imagined for a long time, by excavation. The area has also a flattish floor, which lies over the royal chamber, but sometimes a good height above it, having nurseries and magazines between. It is likewise water-proof, and contrived, as far as I could guess, to let the water off, if it should get in, and run over, by some short way, into the subterraneous passages which run under the lowest apart ments in the bill, in various directions, and are of an astonishing size, being wider than the bore of a great cannon. I have a memorandum of one I measured, perfectly cylindrical, and thirteen inches in diameter. These subterraneous passages or galleries, are lined very thick with the same kind of clay of which the hili is composed, and ascend the inside of the outward shell, in a spiral manner, and winding round the whole building up to the top intersect each other at different heights, opening either immediately into the dome in various places, and into the interior building, the new turrets, &c. on communicating thereto by other galleries of different bores of diameters, either circular or oval. From every part of these large galleries, are various small pipes or galleries, leading to different parts of the building. Under ground there are a great many which lead downward by sloping descents, three and four feet perpendicular, among the gravel, from whence the labour. ing termites cull the finer parts, which, being worked up in their mouths, to the consistence of mar tar, becomes that solid clay or stone. of which their hills and all their buildings, except their nurseries, art composed. Other galleries again ascend and lead out horizontally on every side, and are carried under ground, to the surface, a vast distance; for, if you destroy all the nests within one hundred yards of your house, the inhabitants of those which are lett unmolested farther off, will neverthe less carry on their subterraneousgal leries, and invade the goods and mer chandizes contained in it by sap ard mine, and do great mischief, if you are not very circumspect. But to return to the cities from whence these extraordinary expedi tions and operations originate, it seems there is a degree of necessity for the galleries under the bills being thus large, being the great thorough fares fares for all the labourers and soldiers going forth or returning upon any business whatever, whether fetching clay, wood, water, or provisions; and they are certainly well calculated for the purpose to which they are applied, by the spiral slope which is given them; for, if they were perpendicular, the labourers would not be able to carry on their building with so much facility, as they ascend a perpendicular with great difficulty, and the soldiers can scarce do it at all. It is on this account that sometimes a road like a ledge is made on the perpendicular side of any part of the building with in their hill, which is flat on the upper surface, and half an inch wide, and ascends gradually like a stair-case, or like those roads which are cut on the sides of hills or mountains, that would otherwise be inaccessible; by which and similar contrivances, they travel with great facility to every interior part. This too is probably the cause of their building a kind of bridge of one vast arch, which answers the purpose of a flight of stairs from the floor of the area, to some opening on the side of one of the columns which support the great arches, which must shorten the distance exceed ingly, to those labourers who have the eggs to carry from the royal chamber to some of the upper nurseries, which, in some hills, would be four or five feet in the straightest line, and much more if carried through all the winding passages which lead through the inner chambers and apartments. I have a memorandum of one of the bridges, half an inch broad, a quarter of an inch thick, and ten inches long, making the side of an elliptic arch, of proportionable size, VOL. VIII. so that it is wonderful it did not fall I have observed before, that there are of every species of termites three orders; of these orders the working insects, or labourers, are always the most numerous; in the termes bellicosus there seems to be at the least one hundred labourers to one of the fighting insects, or soldiers. They are, in this state, about one fourth of an inch long, and twentyfive of them weigh about a grain; so that they are not so large as some of our ants. From their external habit and fondness for wood, they have been very expressively called wood-lice by some people, and the whole genus have been known by that name, particularly among the French. They resemble them, it is true, very much, at a distance, but they run as fast or faster, than any other insects of their size, and are incessantly bustling about their affairs. The second order, or soldiers, have a very different form from the labourers, and have been by some authors supposed to be the males, and the former neuters; but they are, in fact, the same insects as the foregoing, only they have undergone a change of form, and approached one degree nearer to the perfect state. They are now much larger, being half an inch long, and equal in bulk to fifteen of the la bourers. 3 P There There is now, likewise, a most remarkable circumstance in the form of the head and mouth; for, in the former state, the mouth is evidently calculated for gnawing and holding bodies, but in this state, the jaws being shaped just like two very sharp awls, a little jagged, they are incapable of any thing but piercing or wounding, for which purposes they are very effectual, being as hard as a crab's claw, and placed in a strong horny head, which is of a nut brown colour, and larger than all the rest of the body together, which seems to labour under great difficulty in carrying it; on which account, perhaps, the animal is incapable of climbing up perpendicular surfaces. The third order, or the insect in its perfect state, varies its form still more than ever. The head, thorax, and abdomen, differ almost entirely from the same parts in the labourers and soldiers; and, besides this, the animal is now furnished with four fine large, brownish, tran-parent wings, with which it is at the same time of emanation to wing its way in search of a new settlement. In short, it differs so much from its form and appearance in the other two states, that it has never been supposed to be the same animal, but by those who have seen it in the same nest; and some of these have distrusted the evidence of their senses. It was so long before I met with them in the nests myself, that I doubted the information which was given me by the natives, that they bel nged to the same family. In deed, we may open twenty nests without finding one winged one, for those are to be found only just be fore the cominencement of the rainy season, when they underg the last change, which is preparative to their colonization. Add to this, they sometimes abandon an outward part of their building, the community being diminished by some accident, to me unknown, Sometimes too, different species of the real ant (formica) possess themselves by force of a lodgment, and so are frequently dislodged from the same nest, and taken for the same kind of insects. This, I know, is often the case with the nests of the smaller species, which are frequently totally aban doned by the termites, and completely inhabited by different species of ants, cock-roaches, scolopendra, scorpions, and other vermin, fond of obscure retreats, that occupy dif ferent parts of their roomy buildings. In the winged state they have also much altered their size as well as form. Their bodies now measure between six and seven tenths of as inch in length, and their wings above two inches and a half from tip to us and they are equal in bulk to about thirty labourers, or two soldiers. They are now also furnished with two large eyes, placed on each side of the head, and very conspicuous; if they have any before, they are not easily to be distinguished. Probably in the two first states their eyes, they have any, may be small ke those of moles; for as they live liko those animals, always under ground, they have as little occasion for these organs, and it is not to be wondered at that we do not discover them; but the case is much altered when they arrive at the winged state in which they are to roam, though but for a few hours, through the wide air, and explore new and distant regions. In this form the animal comes abroad, during, or 8005 after after the first tornado, which, at the latter end of the dry season, proclaims the approach of the ensuing rains, and seldom waits for a second or third shower, if the first, as is generally the case, happens in the night, and brings much wet after it. The quantities that are to be found the next morning, all over the surface of the earth, but particularly on the waters, is astonishing; for their wings are only calculated to carry them a few hours, and after the rising of the sun, not one in a thousand is to be found with four wings, unless the morning continues rainy, when here and there a solitary being is seen winging its way from one place to another, as if solicitous only to avoid its numerous enemies, particularly various species of ants, which are hunting on every spray, on every leaf, and in every possible place, for this unhappy race, of which, probably, not a pair in many millions get into a place of safety, fulfil the first law of nature, and lay the foundation of a new community. Not only all kinds of ants, birds, and carnivorous reptiles, as well as insects, are upon the hunt for them, but the inhabitants of many countries, and particularly of that part Africa where I was, eat them. On the following morning, however, as I have observed, they are to be seen running upon the ground in chace of each other; sometimes with one or two wings still hanging to their bodies, which are not only useless, but seem rather cumber some. The greater part have no wings, but they run exceeding fast, the males after the females; I have sometimes remarked two males after one female, contending with great ⚫agerness who should win the prize, regardless of the innumerable dangers that surrounded them. They are now become, from one of the most active, industrious, and rapacious, one of the most fierce and implacable little animals in the world, the most innocent, helpless, and cowardly; never making the least resistance to the smallest ant. The ants are to be seen on, every side in infinite numbers, of various species and sizes, dragging these an nual victims of the laws of nature to their different nests. It is wonderful that a pair should ever escape so many dangers, and get into a place of security. Some, however, are so fortunate; and being found by some of the labouring insects, that are continually running about the surface of the ground, under their covered galleries, which I shall shortly describe, are elected kings and queens of new states; all those who are not so elected and preserved, certainly perish, and most probably in the course of the following day. The manner in which these labourers protect the happy pair from their innumerable enemies, not only on the day of the massacre of almost all their race, but for a long time after, will, I hope, justify me in the use of the term election. The little industrious creatures immediately enclose them in a small chamber of clay, suitable to their size, into which at first they leave but one small entrance, large enough for themselves and the soldiers to go in and out, but much too little for either of the royal pair to make use of; and when necessity obliges them to make morcntrances, they are larger; so that of course the voluntary subjects charge themselves with the task of providing for the offspring of their sovereigns, as well as to 3 P 2 never work work and to fight for them, until they shall have raised a progeny capable at least of dividing the task with them. About this time a most extraordinary change begins to take place in the queen, to which I know nothing similar, except in the puler penetrans of Linnæus, the jigger of the West Indies, and in the different species of coccus, cochineal. The abdomen of this female begins gradually to extend and enlarge to such an enor mous size, that an old queen will have it increased so as to be fifteen hundred or two thousand times the bulk of the rest of her body, and twenty or thirty thousand times the bulk of a labourer, as I have found by carefully weighing and computing the different states. The skin, between the segments of the abdomen extends in every direction; and at last the segments are removed to half an inch distance from each other, though at first the length of the whole abdomen is not half an inch. They preserve their dark brown colour, and the upper part of the abdomen is marked with a regu. lar series of brown bars, from the thorax to the posterior part of the abdomen, while the intervals between them are covered with a thin, delicate, transparent skin, and ap. pear of a fine cream colour, a little shaded by the dark colour of the intestines and watery fluid seen here and there beneath. I conjecture the animal is upwards of two years old when the abdomen is increased to three inches in length: I have sometimes found them of near twice that size. The abdomen is nowy f an irregular oblong shape, being contracted by the muscles of every seg ment, and is become one vast matrix full of eggs, which make long circumvolutions, through an innumerable quantity of very minute vessels, that circulate round the inside, in a serpentine manner, which would exercise the ingenuity of a skilful anatomist to dissect and develope. This singular matrix is not more remarkable for its amazing extension and size, than for its peristaltic motion, which resembles the undulating of waves, and continues incessantly, without apparent effort of the animal; so that ore part or other alternately is rising and sinking in perpetual succession, and the matrix seems never at rest, but is always protruding eggs to the amount (as I have frequently coun! ed in old queens) of sixty in a m nute, or eighty thousand and upward in one day of twenty-four hours. These eggs are instantly taket | from her body by her attendants, cf whom there always are in the royal chamber and galleries adjacent, sufficient number in waiting, and carried to the nurseries, which, in & great nest, may some of them be four or five feet distant, in a straight line, and consequently much farther by their winding galleries. Here, after they are hatched, the young are attended and provided with every thing necessary, until they are able to shift for themselves, and take their share of the labours of the community. The foregoing, I flatter myself, is an accurate descripta and account of the termes bellicosss, or species that builds the large rests in its different states. The termites except their heads, are exceeding soft, and covered with a very thin and delicate skin; being blind, they are no match on open ground for the ants, who can see, and are all of them covered with a strong horny shell, not easily pierced, and 1 1 |