Mr. T.S. Savage on the Termitide of West Africa. 101 
the main passages in the walls down to the basement. These 
several passages were smooth, as if by being well-worn by con- 
stant tread, and it undoubtedly is through them that their food 
is brought from below to the “magazines.” The first fragment 
of the hill exposed numerous apparent perforations, from the 
size of a shot to that of a dollar, which were increased by every 
stroke ; these were the different passages, running in every direc- 
tion and anastomosing with each other, keeping up a communi- 
cation throughout the domicile. 
The walls seemed to be about 12 inches thick, and contained 
numerous cavities or cells of various sizes and shapes, with young 
in different stages of growth, extremely white and delicate. They 
communicated with each other and with the main passages. The 
number of young contained in them varied from twelve to twenty. 
When several were found in one cell, they were regularly and 
closely packed, with their heads converging towards the bottom. 
The first idea which this arrangement presented to my mind, was 
that of pigs in an autumnal night, stowed in the angle of a “ Vir- 
ginia fence.” 
Having beaten away the wall of the hill, a layer of light brown 
spongy substance was seen, its structure irregularly cellular and 
inclosed in red moist clay of corresponding form ; the “ nurseries” 
of Smeathman. The cells contained young of different sizes ; on 
the surface were visible numerous scattered minute white glo- 
bular bodies, probably fungi. Messrs. Kirby and Spence sup- 
pose them to belong to the genus Mucor. But the Mucorini 
are generated from decayed animal and stercoraceous matter. 
Without a microscopic examination, they seem to me to be as- 
signed more naturally to the Trichocisti, perhaps Trichia, the pin- 
head fungi, which are known to spring from decayed vegetable 
substance. It is highly probable that the material of which these 
nurseries are made is at base vegetable matter. hei extent, 
as thus observed, is from the base to two-thirds the height of 
the sides of the hill. Centrally to these, and lying immediately 
under the floor of the “dome,” was a series of cellular work, en- 
tirely of clay, filled with a chestnut-brown substance, very moist, 
having the appearance of rasped or gnawed wood, and other 
vegetable matter. These are Smeathman’s “ magazines” and 
“food,” which, with the nurseries, constitute almost two-thirds 
of the contents of the structure. 
Throughout the nurseries were found young in different stages 
of growth: those in the external cells were smaller and mostly 
without rudimental wings ; those in the interior cells were larger, 
with distinctly developed mandibles and rudimentary wings ge- 
nerally, the pupe of soldiers. The young in the interior of this 
cellular work, with a few exceptions, were assuming the yellow 
