320 Insect Architecture. 



the heavy rains, but to collect and preserve a regular degree 

 of the warmth and moisture necessary for hatching the eggs 

 and cherishing the young. The royal chamber occupied by 

 the king and queen appears to be, in the opinion of this 

 little people, of the most consequence, being always situated 

 as near the centre of the interior building as possible. It is 

 always nearly in the shape of half an egg, or an obtuse oval, 

 within, and may be supposed to represent a long oven. In 

 the infant state of the colony it is but about an inch in 

 length ; but in time will be increased to six or eight inches, 

 or more, in the clear, being always in proportion to the size 

 of the queen, who, increasing in bulk as in age, at length 

 requires a chamber of such dimensions. 



Queen distended with Eggs. 



Its floor is perfectly horizontal, and in large hillocks, 

 sometimes more than an inch thick of solid clay. The 

 roof, also, which is one solid and well-turned oval arch, is 

 generally of about the same solidity ; but in some places it 

 is not a quarter of an inch thick on the sides where it joins 

 the floor, and where the doors or entrances are made level 

 with it, at nearly equal distances from each other. These 

 entrances will not admit any animal larger than the soldiers 

 or labourers ; so that the king and the queen (who is, at full 

 size, a thousand times the weight of a king) can never 

 possibly go out, but remain close prisoners. 



[There is a good series of the queen cells of the Termite in 

 the British Museum, and the reader is strongly recommended 

 to go and examine them. Some of them are as large as 

 cocoa-nuts. Around the cell are a number of small holes, 

 looking as if they had been bored with a bradawl. Now, if 



