196 THE WORLD'S LUMBER ROOM. 



the soldiers, who have large heads wherewith to inflict 

 deadly wounds on an enemy; and the king and queen, 

 who spend their lives in retirement, and are diligently 

 waited on by their subjects. The queen is from three 

 to six inches long, and lays about sixty eggs a minute, 

 which are at once carried off by her attendants to the 

 nurseries, there to be carefully watched and tended. The 

 nursery walls, by-the-bye, are slightly covered 

 with "mould/' which under the microscope 

 resolves itself into minute white globules, of 

 the size of a small pin's-head, and the shape 

 of mushrooms ; and it is probable these tiny 

 fungi are grown purposely as food for the grubs. 

 The nest of the termite, surnamed bdlicosus 

 ("warlike,") is a wonderful construction, shaped 

 like a hay-cock or sugar-loaf, and as it is from 

 eight to twelve feet high, when several are built 

 Fig. 39. LA- together they might easily be mistaken for 

 BOURERTEK- a na ti v e African village. If our buildings bore 



MIT E. 



the same proportion to our size as these nests 

 do to the size of the termites, which are only about a 

 quarter of an inch long,* we should be living in houses 

 more than half a mile high, or nearly five times the height 

 of the Great Pyramid. Yet they are completed in three 

 or four years, and in the second and third year are 

 covered with a growth of grass, &c., which, as it withers 

 in the sun, gives them the appearance of haystacks. 

 In Africa they are made of a yellow clay, which is 



* The labourers are a quarter of an inch, the soldiers half an inch, 

 long. 



