238 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Activity of the labourers. 



stain of blood upon the stocking extends more 

 than an inch in width. They make their hooked 

 jaws meet at the first stroke, and never quit their 

 hold, but will suffer themselves to be pulled away 

 piec-3 after piece, without any attempt to escape. 

 On the other hand, if a person keep out of their 

 reach, and give them no farther disturbance, in 

 less than half an hour they retire into the nest, 

 as if they supposed the monster that damaged 

 their cattle had fled. Before the whole of the 

 soldiers have got in, the labouring insects are all 

 in motion, and hasten towards the breach, each 

 of them having a quantity of tempered mortar 

 iu his mouth. This mortar they stick upon the 

 breach as fast as they arrive, and perform the 

 operation with so much dispatch and facility, 

 that, notwithstanding the immensity of their 

 numbers, they never stop or embarrass one ano- 

 ther. During this scene of apparent hurry and 

 confusion, the spectator is agreeably surprised 

 when he perceives a regular wall gradually rising 

 and filling up the chasm. While the labourers 

 are thus employed, almost all the soldiers remain 

 within, except here and there one, who saunters 

 about among six hundred or a thousand labour- 

 ers, but never touches the mortar. One soldier, 

 however, always takes his station close to the 

 wall that the labourers are building. This sol- 

 dier turns himself leisurely on all sides, and, at 

 intervals of a minute or two, raises his head, 

 beats upon the building with his forceps, and 



