298 HABITS AND INSTINCTS OP ANIMALS. CHAP. X. 



judiciously observed,, " being the rapid multiplication 

 of the species, Providence has employed extraordinary 

 means to secure the fulfilment of this object, by creating 

 a particular order of individuals in each society,, which,, 

 freed from sexual pursuits, may give themselves 

 wholly to labour, and thus absolve the females from 

 every employment but that of furnishing the society, 

 from time to time, with a sufficient supply of eggs to 

 keep up the population to its proper standard. In the 

 ease of the white ants, the office of working for the 

 society devolves upon the larvse ; the neuters being the 

 soldiers of the community." Numbers are also essential 

 to the full development of the instinct of all social 

 animals ; and where these are to act in complete 

 unison, according to their several offices, it seems abso- 

 lutely impossible that this object can be attained with- 

 out the reciprocal communication of ideas : hence, as 

 Huber justly observes, " this can scarcely exist without 

 the intervention of language ; for such may be called 

 every mode of expressing their wishes, their wants, and 

 even their ideas, if that name may be given to the 

 impulses of instinct." It would be difficult to explain 

 in any other way that concurrence of all wills to one 

 end, and that species of harmony which the whole of 

 their institution exhibits. 



(307-) The history of the Termites, or white ants, re- 

 plete with some of the most astonishing and interesting 

 facts in animal economy, was first made known to the 

 world by Smeathman, an able entomologist and intre- 

 pid traveller, who, for many years, braved the pestilen- 

 tial climate of Western Africa in the pursuit of his 

 favourite science. It is of the various species which he 

 met "with in those regions that we are about to speak ; 

 for, although others, no less remarkable, are found in 

 myriads on the opposite coast of America, their eco- 

 nomy has never been properly investigated ; and so 

 many other objects claimed and almost distracted the 

 attention, during our own researches in those countries, 

 that the little original information here added is par- 



