NATURAL 
fares for all the labourers and sol- 
diers going forth or returning upon 
any business- whatever, mhetlier 
- fetching clay, wood, water, or pro- 
visions ; and they are certainly well 
calculated for the purpose to which 
they are applied, by the spiral slope 
which is given them; for, if they 
were perpendicular, the labourers 
would not be able to carry on their 
building with so much facility, as 
they ascend a perpendicular with _ 
great difficulty, and the soldiers can 
scarce doit atall. It ison this.ac- 
count that sometimes a road Irke a 
Jedge is made on the perpendicular 
_ side of any part of the building with. 
in their hill, which is flat on the 
upper surface, and half an inch 
wide, and ascends gradually like a 
stair-case, or like those roads which 
_ are cut on the sides of hills or moun- 
_ tains, that would otherwise be inac- 
cessible ; by which and similar con- 
trivances, they travel with great 
_ facility to every interior part. 
_ This too is probably the cause of 
their building a kind of bridge of 
one vast arch, which answers the 
_ purpose of a flight of stairs from the 
_ floor of the area, to some opening on 
‘ " the side of one of the columns which 
_ Support the great arches, which 
must shorten the distance exceed- 
i ingly, to those labourers who have 
the eggs to carry from the royal 
_ chamber to some of the upper nur- 
" series, which, in some hills, would 
be four or five feet in the straightest 
line, and much more if carried 
4 through all the winding passages 
f which lead through the inner cham- 
_ bers and apartments. 
I have 2 memorandum of one of 
- the bridges, half an inch broad, a 
_ quarter of an inch thick, and ten 
inches long, making the side of an 
by Dettiptic arch, of proportionable size, 
7’ Vou. Vill, 
<a 
HISTORY. 945 
so that it is wonderful it did not fall 
over or break by its own weight, 
before they got it joined to the side 
of the column above. It was 
strengthened by a small arch at the 
bottom, and had a hollow, or grove, 
all the length of the upper surface, 
either made purposely for the inha- 
bitants to travel over with more 
safety, or else, which is not impro- 
bable, worn so by frequent treading. 
I have observed before, that there 
are of every species of termites three 
ordeta} of these orders the working 
insects, or labourers, are always the 
most numerous; in the ¢ermes 
bellicosus there seems to be at the 
least one hundred labourers to one 
of the fighting, insects, or soldiers. 
They are, in this state, about one 
fourth of an inch long, and twenty- 
five of them weigh about a grain; 
so that they are not so large as some 
of our ants. From their external 
habit and fondness for wood, they 
have been very expressively called 
wood-lice by some people, and the 
whole genus have been known by 
that name, particularly among the 
French. They resemble them, it is 
true, very much, at a distance, but 
they run as fast or faster, than any 
other insects of their size, and are 
incessantly bustling about their af- 
fairs. 
The second order, or “soldiers, 
have a very different form from the 
labourers, and have been by some 
authors supposed to be the males, 
and the former neuters; but they 
are, in fact, the same insects as the 
foregoing, only they have undere 
gone a change of form, and. ap= _ 
proached one degree nearer to the 
perfect state. They are now much 
larger, being half an inch long, and 
equal in bulk to fifteen of the la 
bourers, 
3 P There 
