"372 CLAUDE FULLER. 



'J'he Hive. 



When the nest of Termes natalensis is spoken of, the 

 term necessarily includes the cavern in which the colony 

 <3ongregates and propagates, together with the mound and 

 the great stopes and galleries. Some precise term is required 

 to express the chamber in which the community has its 

 headquarters, wherein resides its parents, and all matters 

 pertaining to the propagation of the young take place. No 

 word is more applicable than '^' hive " ; but it must be 

 remarked here that whilst the term signifies a part of a 

 whole as applied to the nests of certain termites, it applies to 

 the whole in others (parvus), and cannot be used, at all in 

 connection with some (in cert us). 



Upon these premises the hive of natalensis may be 

 described as a single sub-globular (sometimes ellipsoidal) 

 cavern, which lies as a rule immediately below the centre of 

 the mound. It is like a many storied house, a series of fiats 

 rising tier upon tier from its concave floor to its arched 

 ■ceiling. The shelves of clay are slightly arched and attached 

 strongly all around to the walls, being systematically 

 bracketed thereto. Besides this they are supported by 

 vertical columns so fashioned as to serve this purpose, and at 

 the same time form stairways from storey to storey. 



In the lower hemisphere of the cavity the shelves are no 

 more than thin laminee of clay, and but shortly removed 

 from one another ; then, as storey succeeds upon stoi-ey, the 

 space between each is increased, and the most spacious are 

 those in the dome. As the distances increase so does the 

 thickness of the shelf until it may be as much as a quarter of 

 an inch. Similarly the pillars or stairways are increased in 

 their dimensions. The Avhole of the partitioning is soft and 

 moist and of a friable nature, so that stability is due to the 

 architectural features; the Aveight being so distributed and 

 the curvature of the shelves such that the higher and more 

 ponderous do not fall and crash through the more fragile 

 structure below. This feature is perhaps illustrated at its 



