AFFECTION FOR THE YOUNG. 535 



doubtlessly constructed of splinters of wood fastened together with 

 gum. All these cells are connected by means of small apertures, and 

 several apertures also open from the surrounding spaces into the 

 central royal cell ; the exterior outlets are not perceptible, they lie 

 at the foundations of the house, and consist in passages, which also 

 pass beneath the earth, and only at distant points open to the surface. 

 At these the Termites, which pass in and out, present themselves. 



The following is the economy of the state : At the termination 

 of the hot season, when the moderated temperature of the rainy period 

 announces itself by cooler winds, the young males and females disclosed 

 in the nest quit it, and appear upon the surface of the earth ; here 

 they swarm in innumerable hosts, and pair. The busied workers then 

 convey a pair back into the dwelling, and imprison them in the central 

 royal cell, the entrances to which they decrease and guard. Through 

 these apertures the imprisoned pair then receive the nutriment they 

 require. The male now, as among all other insects, speedily dies after 

 copulating, but the female commences from this period to swell con- 

 siderably from the development of the eggs ; this swelling continues 

 until the time of her commencing to lay them, when her abdomen is 

 about 1,500 or 2,000 times larger than the rest of her body. During 

 the period of this swelling the workers remove the walls of the royal 

 cell, uniting the nearest cells to it, so that in proportion to the increase 

 of the body of the queen the size of the cell she inhabits is also 

 increased. She now commences to lay eggs during the constant undu- 

 lating motion of her abdomen, which exhibits the peristaltic motion of 

 the egg- ducts. The eggs are conveyed away by the workers as they 

 are laid, and conveyed to the distant rearing cells. It is impossible to 

 give the exact number of the eggs laid, but it must be enormous, which 

 is proved as well by the size of her abdomen as by the long time she is 

 laying them, as well as by the number she lays in a minute, namely, 

 sixty. In these nursery cells the larvae are first fed by the workers, 

 they afterwards intermix among the workers, and participate in their 

 destructive expeditions, which they make without any impediment, by 

 means of their subterranean passages to the vicinity of the substance 

 they purpose to destroy. Thus far extends the information of natu- 

 ralists who have travelled. They are silent upon the mode in which a 

 new colony is founded, and what induces the old ones to their forma- 

 tion, and we may, if we will not remain wholly dark upon the subject, 

 start the hypothesis that the communities of Termites, at the time 



