HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 509 



Smeathman calls the royal apartments^ an inextricable 

 labyrinth of innumerable arched rooms of different 

 shapes and sizes, either opening into each other or com- 

 municating by common passages, and intended for the 

 accommodation of the soldiers and attendants, of whom 

 many thousands are always in waiting on their royal 

 master and mistress. Next to the royal apartments 

 come the nurseries and the magazines. The former are 

 invariably occupied by the eggs and young ones, and in 

 the infant state of the nest are placed close to the royal 

 chamber; but when the queen's augmented size re- 

 quires a larger apartment, as well as additional rooms 

 for the increased number of attendants wanted to remove 

 her eggs, the small nurseries are taken to pieces, rebuilt 

 at a greater distance a size bigger, and their number in- 

 creased at the same time. In substance they differ from 

 all the other apartments, being formed of particles of 

 wood apparently joined together with gums. A col- 

 lection of these compact, irregular, and small wooden 

 chambers, not one of which is half an inch in width, is 

 inclosed in a common chamber of clay sometimes as big 

 as a child's head. Intermixed with the nurseries lie the 

 magazines, which are chambers of clay always well 

 stored with provisions, consisting of particles of wood, 

 gurns, and the inspissated juices of plants. 



These magazines and nurseries, separated by small 

 empty chambers and galleries, which run round them 

 or communicate from one to the other, are continued on 

 all sides to the outer wall of the building, and reach up 

 within it two-thirds or three-fourths of its height. They 

 do not, however, fill up the whole of the lower part of 

 the hill, but are confined to the sides, leaving an open 



