HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE GOSSIP. 



their present condition. Her body is said gradually 

 to increase in size year by year, and one writer on 

 West-Indian Termites asserts that she lays 80,000 

 eggs per diem! ! I, however, think that the num- 

 ber is overstated. 



In her body nothing appears through the semi- 

 transparent skin but the ovary, of enormous length, 

 folded together and full of eggs, which ever move 

 forward, impelled by a peristaltic motion, until laid. 



Fig. 5. Head of Queen magnified. 



Fig. 6. King. 



The royal pair were surrounded by a section of 

 a compauy (I counted 30) of warriors. When the 

 royal cell was broken into, these stood up on their 

 hind legs to attack the intruder, and fastened on 

 my finger without any fear, allowing me to carry 

 them away suspended in the air by their closed 

 mandibles. Their zeal and valour are very sur- 

 prising. 



Fig. 7. Warrior. 



Fig. 8. Eggs. 



Near, however, to the tail of the mother, were 

 thirty or forty workers or nurses, for I could detect 

 no difference in these two classes under a strong 

 glass, and I doubt whether there is any. These 

 waited for each egg as laid, and trotted off with it 

 at once to the nurseries, through one of the many 

 galleries, which were in diameter about that of an 

 ordinary knitting-needle, or one-sixteenth of an 

 inch. Other loyal subjects were feeding the queen 

 from their own mouths. Her appearance was most 

 helpless, and the king walked listlessly up and 

 down beside her, doubtless attending, as need be, 

 from time to time to his own functions ; although 

 it is probable that, once impregnated, the effect, as 

 in queen bees, lasts during life ? 



I obtained a second queen the same day, but I 

 did not see the cell or the nest. 



It has been often stated that if the queen be dug 

 out, the nest will be destroyed, and never be re- 

 newed in the same place. I, however, doubt this, 

 as I again dug up the nest above described, three 

 months after I had refilled the hole, and found it 

 in full working order, with new granaries and nur- 



series, in place of those destroyed by me, although 

 I was not able to find a new royal cell, or king or 

 queen. 



Fig. 9. Worker, nat. size and magnified. 



All are aware of the fearful ravages of this insect 

 in many parts. It was of Mainporl that it was said 

 that, at certain seasons, were a man to lie down to 

 sleep in a blanket on the ground, he would awake in 

 the morning to find his blanket eaten and his bones 

 picked ! This is of course an exaggeration, but it 

 is very wonderful to see the length of covered gal- 

 leries they will construct in one night, and also how 

 they will consume the whole of the interior of a 

 beam, leaving only a thin sheet of wood outside 

 scarcely thicker than cartridge-paper. I have speci- 

 mens of this, and as a proof that they can eat 

 through almost anything, I remember in olden times 

 having seen a sheet of thick lead in the museum of 

 the East-India House at Leadenhail Street, which 

 had been eaten through by them. 



The following extract from an Indian paper,, 

 dated February 23, 18G8, may be deemed of interest : 

 — "It may be remembered by some of our readers, 

 that in 1865 Dr. Bonavia, the Honorary Secretary 

 of the Bengal Agri-horticultural Society at Luck- 

 now, communicated to the Government that he had 

 ascertained that white ants will not touch mats 

 made from the fibre of the American aloe; and 

 further, that the pulp separated from the fibre of 

 the leaves of that plant may be profitably used for 

 mixing up with the clay and cow-dung used in some 

 buildings for plastering walls ; such plaster so im- 

 pregnated being apparently proof against the in- 

 sects. 



Since then further attention has been given to 

 the subject in the Mauritius. The nest and exuvia? 

 of the White Ant are there made use of as an in- 

 fusion or decoction for the treatment of certain 

 nervous affections, particularly epilepsy, and it con- 

 sequently occurred to a Mr. Bick that the matters 

 extracted from wood attacked by the insects might 

 be found to contain some principles similar to those 

 which exist in chloroform or other anaesthetics. A 



b2. 



