350 KAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



under ground by a special gallery. Some of these 

 insects appeared to me to moisten the materials after 

 they had been put in their right places with a liquid, 

 which was no doubt intended to harden them. Du- 

 ring these labours., the soldiers were most evidently 

 engaged in playing the part of leaders and super- 

 intendents. I saw one here and there, and always 

 alone, mixing amongst the labourers but never per- 

 forming any of the work. At times they made a 

 sort of tremulous motion with the whole of their 

 body, and struck the ground with their forceps, on 

 which all the neighbouring workers executed the 

 same movement and exhibited renewed activity. In 

 twenty hours the circular gallery was fit for use. 

 It must be admitted, however, that the walls of the 

 bowl formed almost half of it. At the same time 

 the earth had been consolidated, and its surface 

 smoothed, whilst a cork which I had thrown in was 

 half buried. I then gave them three other corks, 

 and added successively a closely compressed paper 

 ball and a large ball of bread crumbs. These dif- 

 ferent materials remained precisely in the same 

 position in which they had accidentally fallen, and I 

 thought at first that they had been despised by the 

 Termites, but having after a few days turned the 

 bowl completely over, I found that they all remained 

 in their places notwithstanding their weight. They 

 had, in fact, been cemented together, and I disco- 

 vered afterwards, on opening them, that the insects 

 had carried their galleries through them, although 

 the work of cementing and boring could not be dis- 

 covered from the exterior. 



