THE ANT. 



Extraordinary change in the queen. 



make more entrances, they are never larger; so 

 that, of course, the voluntary subjects charge 

 themselves with the task of providing for the off- 

 spring of their sovereigns, as well as of working 

 and fighting for them, until they have raised a 

 progeny capable at least of dividing the task 

 with them." 



A most extraordinary change takes place about 

 this time, in the queen. The abdomen begins 

 to extend and enlarge to such an enormous size, 

 that an old queen will sometimes have it so much 

 increased as to be near two thousand times the 

 bulk of the rest of her body. The skin between 

 the segments of the abdomen extends in every 

 direction ; and at last the segments are removed 

 to the distance of half an inch from each other, 

 though at first the whole length of the abdomen 

 was not half an inch. When the insect is up- 

 ward of two years old, the abdomen is increased 

 to three inches in length, and it is sometimes 

 seen near twice that size. It Js now of an irre- 

 gular oblong shape, and is become one vast ma- 

 trix full of eggs, which make long circumvolu- 

 tions through an innumerable quantity of very 

 minute vessels, that circulate round the inside in 

 a serpentine manner. When the eggs are per- 

 fectly formed, they begin to be protruded, and 

 they come forth so quickly that about sixty in a 

 minute, or upward of eighty thousand in twenty- 

 four hours, are deposited. These eggs are im- 

 mediately taken away by the attendants, and 



