TERMITES. 203 



change in the female or queen. Her abdomen is gradually 

 extended and enlarged to a most enormous size ; so that in 

 an old queen it has been found to have increased to 1500 ' 7 

 or 2000 times the bulk of the rest of the body, and 20 or 

 30,000 times the bulk of a common laborer. The skin ex- 

 tends in every direction, so that the abdomen, which is not 

 originally more than half an inch in length, has at length 

 each of its segments removed to that distance from each 

 other. When the animal is two years old, the abdomen has 

 increased to three inches in length, and they have sometimes ^ 

 been found of twice that size. This is now full of eggs, 

 which are contained in a vast number of very minute and 

 convoluted vessels, which, moving in a serpentine manner, 

 cause an undulating appearance without, like that of the 

 peristaltic motion of the intestines. By means of this motion, 

 the eggs are protruded in almost incredible numbers, to the V ' > 

 amount, as has been pretty accurately calculated, of 80,000 

 or upward in twenty-four hours. 



The eggs are instantly taken care of by the laborers, and 

 placed in proper depositories or nurseries, where they are 

 hatched. The young are then attended, and provided with 

 every thing necessary until they are able to shift for them- 

 selves, and take their share in the labors of the community. 



The nests of the termites bellicosi, or wood-lice, are called 

 hills by the natives of Africa, New Holland, and other hot 

 climates. This appellation is highly proper ; for they are of- 

 ten elevated ten or twelve feet above the surface of the earth, / ' & 

 and are nearly of a conical figure. These hills, instead of 

 being rare phenomena, are so frequent in many places near 

 Senegal, that, as described with great propriety by Mons. 

 Adnnson, their number, magnitude, and closeness of situation, 

 make them appear like villages of the negroes. ' Of all the 

 extraordinary things I observed/ says Mons. Adanson, in his 

 voyage to Senegal, ' nothing struck me more than certain 

 eminences, which, by their height and regularity, made me 

 take them, at a -distance, for an assemblage of negro huts, or 

 a considerable village, and yet they were only the nests of 

 certain insects. These nests are round pyramids, from eight 

 to ten feet high, upon nearly the same base, with a smooth 

 surface of rich clay, excessively hard and well built.' Job- 

 son, in his history of Gambia, tells us that 'the ant-hills are 

 remarkable, cast up in those parts by the pismires, some of 

 them twenty foot in height, of compasse to contayne a dozen 

 men, with the heat of the sun baked into that hardnesse, that 



