150 NATURAL HISTORY. [cH. VIIL 



the surface of the ground under their covered gal- 

 leries, they are elected kings and queens of new 

 states. All those who have not the good luck to be 

 so preserved, certainly perish, and most probably in 

 the course of the following day. 



The manner in which these labourers protect the 

 happy pair from their innumerable enemies, not 

 only on the day of the massacre of almost all their 

 race, but for a long time after, justifies the use of the 

 term "election." 



The little industrious creatures immediately en- 

 close the favoured individuals in a small chamber 

 of clay, suitable to their size, into which at first 

 they have but one entrance just large enough for the 

 workers and the soldiers to go in and out, but much 

 too contracted to be used by either of the royal pair; 

 and when necessity obliges them to make more en- 

 trances, they are never larger: so that of course 

 these subjects charge themselves voluntarily with 

 the labour of providing for the offspring of their 

 sovereigns, as well as of working and of fighting 

 for them, until they shall have raised a progeny ca- 

 pable at least of dividing the task with them. 



About this time a most extraordinary change 

 begins to take place in the queen, to which nothing 

 similar is known except in the chigoe, and in the 

 different species of the coccus tribe : the abdomen 

 begins gradually to enlarge, and at length acquires 

 such an enormous size, that an old queen will have 

 it increased to an extent which equals fifteen hun- 

 dred or two thousand times the bulk of the rest of 



