THE WHITE ANTS. 



48. In fig. 12 is represented the king or queen of the Termes 

 mordax, in fig. 13 the worker, and in fig. 14 the soldier. 



TERMES MORDAX. 



Fig. 12. Fig. 13. Fig. 14. 



Worker. Soldier. 



King or Queen. 



The building is divided into innumerable cells of irregular 

 shapes ; sometimes they are quadrangular or cubic, and sometimes 

 pentagonal ; but often the angles are so ill defined, that each half 

 of a cell will be shaped like the inside of that shell which is 

 called the sea- car. 



49. Each cell has two or more entrances, but as there are no 

 tunnels or galleries, no variety of apartments, no well-turned 

 arches, wooden nurseries, &c., &c., as in the habitations already 

 described, they are not calculated to excite the same degree of 

 wonder, however admirable they may be considered without 

 reference to other structures. 



There are two sizes of these turret nests, built by two different 

 species of Termites. The larger species, the Termes atrox, in its 

 perfect state, measures one inch and three-tenths from the 

 extremities of the wings on the one side to the extremities on the 

 other. The lesser, Termes mordax, measures only eight-tenths 

 of an inch from tip to tip. 



50. The next kind of nests, built by another species of this 

 genus, the Termes arborum, have very little resemblance to the 

 former in shape or substance. These are generally spherical or 

 oval, built in trees : sometimes they are established between, and 

 sometimes surrounding, the branches, at the height of seventy or 

 eighty feet ; and are occasionally as large as a great sugar-cask. 



51. They are composed of small particles of wood and the various 

 gums and juices of trees, combined with, perhaps, those secreted 

 by the animals themselves, worked by those little industrious 

 creatures into a paste, and so moulded into innumerable little cells 

 of different and irregular forms. These nests, with the immense 

 quantity of inhabitants, young and old, with which they are at 

 all times crowded, are used as food for young fowls, and especially 

 for the rearing of Turkeys. These nests are very compact, and 

 so strongly fixed to the boughs, that there is no detaching them 

 but by cutting them in pieces, or sawing off the branch. They 

 will even sustain the force of a tornado as long as the tree to 



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