286 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



with the surface of the ground, is placed the royal chamber, an arched 

 vault of a semi-oval shape, or not unlike a long oven ; at first not above 

 an inch long, but enlarged as the queen increases in bulk to the length of 

 eight inches or more. In this apartment the king and queen constant!}' 

 reside ; and from the smallness of the entrances, which are barely large 

 enough to admit their more diminutive subjects, can never possibly come 

 out ; thus, like many human potentates, purchasing their sovereignty at 

 the dear rate of the sacrifice of liberty. Immediately adjoining the royal 

 chamber, and surrounding it on all sides to the extent of a foot or more, 

 are placed what Mr. Smeathman calls the royal apartments, an inextricable 

 labyrinth of innumerable arched rooms of different shapes and sizes, either 

 opening into each other or communicating by common passages, and in- 

 tended 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 requires a larger apartment, as well as addi- 

 tional rooms for the increased number of attendants wanted to remove 

 her eggs, the small nurseries are taken to pieces, rebuilt at a greater dis- 

 tance, a size bigger, and their number increased at the same time. In sub- 

 stance they differ from all the other apartments, being formed of particles 

 of wood apparently joined together with gums. A collection 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, gums, 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 area in the middle, under the dome, very much 

 resembling the nave of an old cathedral, having its roof supported by three 

 or four very large Gothic arches, of which those in the middle of the area 

 are sometimes two and three feet high, but as they recede on each side, 

 rapidly diminish like the arches of aisles in perspective. A flatfish roof, 

 imperforated in order to keep out the wet, if the dome should chance to 

 be injured, covers the top of the assemblage of chambers, nurseries, &c. ; 

 and the area, which is a short height above the royal chamber, has a flattish 

 floor, also water-proof, and so contrived as to let any rain that may chance 

 to get in run off into the subterraneous passages. 



These passages or galleries, which are of an astonishing size, some being 

 above a foot in diameter and perfectly cylindrical, lined with the same 

 kind of clay of which the hill is composed, served originally, like the cata- 

 combs in Paris, as the quarries whence the materials of the building were 

 derived, and afterwards as the grand outlets by which the Termites carry 

 on their depredations at a distance from their habitations. They run in 

 a sloping direction under the bottom of the hill to the depth of three or 

 four feet, and then branching out horizontally on every side, are carried 



