White Ants. 321 



the cell be carefully opened, a most curious arrangement will 

 be seen. Each of the little holes serves as an opening into 

 a passage which communicates with the interior of the cell. 

 The apartment, if we may so call it, which contains the queen, 

 is only just large enough to hold her, and there is no door 

 or opening for her egress. This, however, is not required, 

 as her enormous size prevents her from moving. Through 

 these passages runs incessantly a stream of worker termites, 

 some of them carrying eggs which the queen has just laid, and 

 others returning to the royal chamber for a fresh supply.] 



The royal chamber, if in a large hillock, is surrounded by 

 a countless number of others, of different sizes, shapes, and 

 dimensions ; but all of them arched in one way or another 

 sometimes elliptical or oval. These either open into each 

 other, or communicate by passages as wide as, and are 

 evidently made for, the soldiers and attendants, of whom 

 great numbers are necessary, and always in waiting. These 

 apartments are joined by the magazines and nurseries. The 

 former are chambers of clay, and are always well filled with 

 provisions, which, to the naked eye, seem to consist of the 

 raspings of wood, and plants which the termites destroy, but 

 are found by the microscope to be principally the gums or 

 inspissated juices of plants. These are thrown together in 

 little masses, some of which are finer than others, and 

 resemble the sugar about preserved fruits ; others 1 are like 

 tears of gum, one quite transparent, another like amber, a 

 third brown, and a fourth quite opaque, as we see often in 

 parcels of ordinary gums. These magazines are intermixed 

 with the nurseries, which are buildings totally different from 

 the rest of the apartments ; for these are composed entirely 

 of wooden materials, seemingly joined together with gums. 

 Mr. Smeathinan calls them the nurseries because they are 

 invariably occupied by the eggs and young ones, which 

 appear at first in the shape of labourers, but white as snow 

 These buildings are exceedingly compact, and divided into 

 many very small irregular-shaped chambers, not one of which 

 is to be found of half an inch in width. They are placed all 

 round, and as near as possible to the royal apartments. 



Y 



