OF NATURAL HISTORY. 6(57 



* ately inclofe them in a fmall chamber of clay fultable to 



< their iize, into which, at firft, they leave but one fmuU en- 

 « trance, large enough for themfelves and the foldiers to go 



< in and out, but much too little for either of the royal paix 



* to make ufe of 5 and, when neceflity obliges them to make 

 « more entrances, they are never larger ; fo that, of courfe, 

 « the voluntary fubjeBs charge themfelves with the tafk of pro- 

 ' viding for the offspring of their fovereigns, as well as to work 

 ' and to fight for them, until they have raifed a progeny ca- 

 ^ pable at leaft of dividing the talk with them. 



« It is not till this, probably, that they confummate their 

 ' marriage, as I never law a pair of them joined. The bufi- 

 « nefs of propagation, however, foon commences ; and the 

 ' labourers having conftru^fted a fmall wooden nurfery, carry 



< the eggs and lodge them there as faft as they can obtain 



* them from the queen, 



< About this time a moft extraordinary change begins to 



* take place in the queen, to which I know nothing fimilar, 



< except in xhe pulex penetrans of Linnaeus, ih^ jigger of the 

 « Weft-Indies, and in the different fpecies oi coccus, cochineal. 

 « The abdomen of this female begins gradually to extend 

 ' and enlarge to fuch an enormous iize, that an eld queen will 



* have it ingreafed fo as to be ffteen hundred or tiuo ihoufand 



* tinics the bulk of the reft of her body, and t-iventy or thirty 

 S thoufand times the bulk of a labourer, as I have found by 

 « carefully weighing and computing the different ftates. The 



< fkin between the fegments of the abdomen extends in eve- 



* ry direction ; and at laft the fegments are removed to half 



* an inch diftance from each other, though, at firft, the 



* length of the whole abdomen is not half an inch. I conjcc- 



< ture the animal is upwards of two years old when the abdo- 

 « men is increafed to three Inches in length : I have fome- 



< times found them of near twice that fize. The abdomen is 



< now of an irregular oblong (hape, beinc; contr<i61:ed by the 



