PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 345 



cannon, on all sides from their habitation to their various objects of attack : 

 or which sloping down (for they cannot well mount a surface quite per- 

 pendicular) penetrate to the depth of three or four feet under their nests 

 into the earth, till they arrive at a soil proper to be used in the erection 

 of their buildings. Were they, indeed, to expose themselves, the race 

 would soon be annihilated by their innumerable enemies. This circum- 

 stance has deceived the author of the MS. account of those in Ceylon, 

 who, speaking of the nests of these insects in that island, which he 

 describes as twelve feet high, observes, that " they may be considered as a 

 large city, which contains a great number of houses, and these houses an 

 infinite number of cells or apartments : — these cells appear to me to com- 

 municate with each other, but not the houses. I have convinced myself, 

 by hrinffintr together the broken walls of one of the cavities of the nest 

 or cone, that it does not communicate with any other, nor with the exterior 

 of the cone — a very curious circumstance, which I will not undertake to 

 explain. Other cavities communicate by a very narrow tunnel." By 

 not looking for subterranean communications, he was probably led into 

 this error. 



You have before heard of their diligence in building. Does any acci- 

 dent happen to their various structures, or are they dislodged from any of 

 their covered ways, they are still more active and expeditious in repairing. 

 Getting out of sight as soon as possible — and they run as fast or faster than 

 any insect of their size — in a single night they will restore a gallery of three 

 or four yards in length. If, attacking the nest, you divide it in halves, 

 leaving the royal chamber, and thus lay open thousands of apartments, all 

 will be shut up with their sheets of clay by the next morning ; — nay, even 

 if the whole be demolished, provided the king and the queen be left, every 

 interstice between the ruins, at which either cold or wet can possibly enter, 

 will be covered, and in a year the building will be raised nearly to its pris- 

 tine size and grandeur. 



Besides building and repairing, a great deal of their time Is occupied in 

 making necessary alterations in their mansion and its approaches. The 

 royal presence-chamber, as the female increases in size, must be gradually 

 enlarged, the nurseries must be removed to a greater distance, the cham- 

 bers and exterior of the nest receive daily accessions to provide for a daily 

 increasing population ; and the direction of their covered ways must often 

 be varied, when the old stock of provision is exhausted and new dis- 

 covered. 



The collection of provisions for the use of the colony is another employ- 

 ment, which necessarily calls for incessant attention : these to the naked 

 eye appear like raspings of wood ; — and they are, as you have seen, great 

 destroyers of timber, whether wrought or unwrought : — but when examined 

 by the microscope, they are found to consist chiefly of gums and the in- 

 spissated juices of plants, which, formed into little masses, are stored up in 

 magazines of clay. 



When any one is bold enough to attack their nest and make a breach in 

 its walls, the laborers, who are incapable of fighting, retire within, and 

 give place to another description of its inhabitants, whose office it is to 

 defend the fortress when assailed by enemies : — these, as observed before, 

 are the neuters or soldiers. If the breach be made in a slight part of the 



