PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 3!) 



as fast or faster than any insect of their size, — in a sin- 

 gle night they will restore a gallery of three or four 

 yards in length. If, attacking the nest, you divide it 

 in halves, leaving the royal chamber, and thus lay open 

 thousands of apartments, all will be shut up with their 

 sheets of clay by (he next morning; — nay, even if the 

 whole be demolished, provided the king and the queen 

 be left, every interstice between the ruins, at which 

 either cold or wet can possibly enter, will be covered, 

 and in a year the building will be raised nearly to its 

 pristine size and grandeur. 



Besides building and repairing, a great deal of their 

 time is occupied in making necessary alterations in 

 their mansion and its approaches. The royal presence- 

 chamber, as the female increases in size, must be gra- 

 dually enlarged, the nurseries must be removed to a 

 greater distance, the chambers and exterior of the nest 

 receive daily accessions to provide for a daily increas- 

 ing population — and the direction of their covered ways 

 must often be varied, when the old stock of provision 

 is exhausted and new discovered. 



The collection of provisions for the use of the colony 

 is another employment, which necessarily calls for in- 

 cessant attention ; these to the naked eye appear like 

 raspings of wood ; — and they are, as you have seen, 

 great destroyers of timber, whether wrought or un- 

 wrought : — but when examined by the microscope, they 

 are found to consist chiefly of gums and the inspissated 

 juices of plants, which, formed into little masses, are 

 stored up in magazines made of clay. 



When any one is bold enough to attack their nest 

 and make a breach in its walls, the labourers, who are 



