TERMES. 
421 
the height of tlie common surface of the ground, 
at a pace or two from the hillock. It is always 
nearly in the shape of half an egg or an obtuse 
oval within, and may be supposed to represent a 
Ions: oven. 
“ In the infant state of the colony, it is not 
above an inch or thereabout in length; but in 
time will be increased to six or eight inches or 
more in the clear, being always in proportion to 
the size of the queen, who, increasing in bulk as 
in age, at length requires a chamber of such di- 
mensions. 
“ ItsXfloor is perfectly horizontal; and in large 
hillocks, sometimes an inch thick and upward of 
solid clay. The roof also, which is one solid and 
well-turned oval arch, is generally of about the 
same solidity, but in some places it is not a 
quarter of an inch thick, this is on the sides where 
it joins the floor, and where the doors or entrances 
are made level therewith at pretty equal distances 
from each other. 
“ These entrances will not admit any animal 
larger than the soldiers or labourers, so that the 
king, and the queen (who is, at full size, a thou- 
sand times the weight of a king) can never pos- 
sibly go out. 
“ The royal chamber, if in a large hillock, is 
surrounded by an innumerable quantity of others 
of different sizes, shapes, and dimensions; but all 
of them arched in one way or another, sometimes 
circular, and sometimes elliptical or oval. 
I'hese either open into each other or commu- 
