324 HALF HOUKS WITH INSECTS. [Packakd. 



little for either of the royal pair to make use of; and when 

 necessit}' obliges them to make more entrances, they are 

 never larger ; so that of course the voluntary subjects charge 

 themselves with the task of providing for the offspring of 

 their sovereigns as well as to work and to fight for thera 

 until they shall have raised a progeny capable at least of 

 dividing the task with them." 



It is not until this time that the nuptials of the royal pair 

 take place. The queen then lays her eggs "to tlie amount 

 of sixty in a minute, or eighty tliousand and upward in one 

 day." Meanwhile the laborers, "having constru(^ted a small 

 wooden nursery, as before described, carry the eggs and 

 lodge them there as fast as they can obtain them from the 

 queen." These nurseries may be in some cases "four or five 

 feet distant in a straight line, and consequently much farther 

 by their winding galleries." " Here," adds our author, "the 

 young are attended and provided with everything necessary 

 until they are able to shift for themselves, and take their 

 share of the labours of the community." 



As an illustration of the wonderful intelligence of these 

 social Termites as compared with that of solitary insects, 

 Smeathman, in speaking of their numerous underground gal- 

 leries by which thej^ go about in the neighborhood of their 

 nests with the utmost security in all kinds of weather, says 

 that " if they meet 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, continu- 

 ing it with many windings and ramifications through large 

 groves ; having, where it is possible, subterranean pipes run- 

 ning parallel with lliem, into which they sink and save them- 

 selves, if their galleries above ground are destroyed bj^ any 

 violence, or the tread of men or animals alarms them. 

 When one chances by accident to enter a solitary grove, 

 where the ground is pretty well covered with their arched 

 galleries, they give the alarm by loud hissings, which we hear 



4 



