74 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [ANNO 1JS1. 



to such an enormous size, that an old queen will have it increased so as to be 

 1500 or 2000 times the bulk of the rest of her body, and 20 or 30 thousand 

 times the bulk of a labourer, as Mr. S. has found by carefully weighing and 

 computing the different states. The skin between the segments of the abdomen 

 distends in every direction ; and at last the segments are removed to half an inch 

 distance from each other, though at first the length of the whole abdomen is 

 not half an inch. They preserve their dark brown colour, and the upper part 

 of the abdomen is marked with a regular series of brown bars, from the thorax 

 to the posterior part of the abdomen, while the intervals between them are 

 covered with a thin, delicate, transparent skin, and appear of a fine cream 

 colour, a little shaded by the dark colour of the intestines and watery fluid, seen 

 here and there beneath. Mr. S. conjectures the animal is upward of 2 years 

 old when the abdomen is increased to 3 inches in length ; he had sometimes 

 found them of near twice that size. The abdomen is now of an irregular 

 oblong shape, being contracted by the muscles of every segment, and is become 

 one vast matrix full of eggs, which make long circumvolutions through an 

 innumerable quantity of very minute vessels, that circulate round the inside in a 

 serpentine manner, which would exercise the ingenuity of a skilful anatomist to 

 dissect and develope. This singular matrix is not more remarkable for its 

 amazing extension and size, than for its peristaltic motion, which resembles the 

 undulating of waves, and continues incessantly without any apparent effort of 

 the animal; so that one part or other alternately is rising and sinking in perpetual 

 succession, and the matrix seems never at rest, but is always protruding eggs to 

 the amount, as he had frequently counted in old queens, of 60 in a minute, or 

 80 thousand and upward in 1 day of 24 hours.* 



These eggs are instantly taken from her body by her attendants, of whom 

 there always are, in the royal chamber and the galleries adjacent, a sufficient 

 number in waiting, and carried to the nurseries, which in a great nest may some 

 of them be 4 or 5 feet distant in a straight line, and consequently much farther by 

 their winding galleries. Here, after they are hatched, the young are attended and 

 provided with every thing necessary, till they are able to shift for themselves, 

 and take their share in the labours of the community. This then is an accurate 

 description and account of the termes bellicosus, or species that builds the large 

 nests in its different states. 



* Since the reading of this paper, Mr. Jolin Hunter, so celebrated for his great skill and experi- 

 ence in comparative anatomy, has' dissected 'I young queens. He hnds the abdomen contains 2 

 ovaria, in each ot which are many hundred ova-ducts, and in each of these ova-ducts a vast many 

 eggs; so that there seems no doubt of the fact, as the matrix of a full-grown queen must be calcu- 

 lated for tlie production and yielding of a prodigious number of eggs. He lias also dissected the 

 kings; the ret>ult ol these dissections, with some further particulars, will be related in another paper. 



