carry the eggs and lodge them there as fast as they can obtain them from the queen.

About this time a most extraordinary change begins to take place in the queen, to which we have nothing similar, except in the jigger of the West Indies ( Pulex penetrans of Linneus), and in the different species of Coccus (cochineal). The abdomen of this female begins gradually to extend and enlarge to such an enormous size, that in an old queen it will increase so as to become 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 will be found on 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, although 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 regular series of brown bars throughout its entire length, while the intervals between them are covered with a thin, delicate, transparent skin, and appear of a fine cream colour, a little shaded by the dark colour of the intestines and watery fluid seen here and there beneath. The animal is supposed to be upwards of two years old when the abdomen is increased to three inches in length; and they are sometimes found nearly twice that size. The abdomen is now of an irregular oblong shape, being contracted by the muscles of every segment, 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 undulation of waves, and continues incessantly without any apparent effort of the animal; so that one part or other is alternately rising and falling in perpetual succession, and the matrix seems never at rest, but is always protruding eggs. to the number of sixty in a minute in old queens, or eighty thousand and upwards in one day of twenty-four hours. These eggs are instantly taken from the body of the queen by her attendants, (of whom there always are, in the royal chamber and the galleries adjacent, a sufficient number in waiting), and carried to the nurseries, some of which in a large nest may 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 working and the fighting insects never expose themselves to the open air, but either travel under ground, or within such trees and substances as they destroy, except indeed when they cannot proceed by their latent passages, and find it convenient or necessary to search for plunder above ground. In that case they make pipes of the material with which they build their nests. The larger sorts use the red clay, the turret-builders use the black clay, and those which build in trees employ the same ligneous substances of which their nests are composed. With these materials they completely line most of the roads leading from their nests into the various parts of the country, and travel out and home with the utmost security in all kinds of weather. If they meet with a rock or any other obstruction, they will make their way upon the surface; and for that purpose erect a covered way or arch, still of the same materials, continuing it with many windings and ramifications

through large groves; and having, where it is possible, subterranean pipes running parallel with them, into which they sink and save themselves, if their galleries above ground are destroyed by any violence, or the tread of men or animals alarm them. When a person accidentally enters any solitary grove, where the ground is pretty well covered with their arched galleries, they give the alarm by loud hissings, which are distinctly heard at every step; soon after this their galleries may be searched in vain for the insects; but little holes are found, just large enough to admit of their escape into the subterraneous roads. These galleries are of sufficient size to allow the Termites to pass and repass without stopping each other (though there are always numerous passengers), and to shelter them equally from light and air, as well as from their enemies, of which the ants, being the most numerous, are the most formidable.

The Termites, except their heads, are exceedingly soft, and are 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 are of dispositions bold, active and rapacious. Whenever the Termites are dislodged from their covered ways, the various species of ants, which are probably as numerous above ground as the Termites are in their subterranean passages, instantly seize and drag them away to their nests, to feed the young brood. They are therefore exceedingly solicitous about preserving their covered ways in good repair; and if one of these be demolished for a few inches in length, it is wonderful how soon they will rebuild it. At first in their hurry they run into the open part an inch or two, but stop so suddenly that it is evident they are surprised; for though some will run straight on, and get under the further part of the arch as

speedily as possible, most of them run back as fast, and very few will venture through that part of the gallery which is left uncovered. In a few minutes they may be seen engaged in rebuilding the arch, and even if three or four yards of their gallery have been destroyed, it will be restored by the next morning; and on again opening it, the Termites will be found as numerous as ever, passing both ways. If the gallery be several times destroyed, they will at length seem to give up the point, and build another in a different direction; but if the old one led to some favorite plunder, in a few days they will rebuild it again, and unless the nest be destroyed they never totally abandon their gallery.

The Termites generally make their approaches to the nest under ground, descending below the foundations of houses and stores at several feet from the surface, and rising again either in the floors, or entering at the bottoms of the posts of which the sides of the buildings are composed, they bore quite through them, following the course of the fibres to the top, or making lateral perforations and cavities here and there as they proceed. While some are employed in gutting the posts, others ascend from them, entering a rafter or some other part of the roof; if they once find the thatch, which seems to be a favourite food, they bring up wet clay, and build their pipes or galleries through the roof in various directions, as long as it will support them; sometimes eating the palm-tree leaves and branches of which it is composed, and perhaps (for variety seems very pleasing to them) the rattan or other running plant which is used as a cord to tie the various parts of the roof together, and that to the posts which support it: thus, with the assistance of the rats, which, during the rainy season are apt to shelter themselves there and to burrow through it, they very soon ruin the house by weakening the fastenings and exposing it to the wet. In the mean time the posts will be perfor

ated in every direction as full of holes as the timber in the bottoms of ships which has been bored by the worms; the fibrous and knotty parts being left to the last.

In carrying on this business they sometimes find, by some means or other, that the post has a certain weight to support, and then, if it is a convenient track to the roof, or is itself a kind of wood agreeable to them, they bring their mortar, and as fast as they take away the wood replace the vacancy with that material, which being worked together by them closer and more compactly than human strength or art could ram it, when the house is pulled to pieces, the posts formed of the softer kinds of wood are often found reduced almost to a shell, and all or most of them transformed from wood to clay, as solid and as hard as many kinds of free-stone used for building in England. When the hills are more than half their height, it is the practice of the wild bulls to stand as sentinels upon them while the rest of the herd is ruminating below.