OF NATURAL HISTORY. 367 



When a nefl: or hillock is in the infant ftate, the nurferies are 

 clofe to the royal apartment. But as, in procefs of time, the body 

 of the queen enlarges, it becomes neceflary, for her accommodation, 

 to augment the dimeiifions of her chamber. She then, likewife, lays 

 a greater number of eggs, and requires more attendants ; of courfe, 

 it is neceflary that both the number and dimenfions of the adjacent 

 apartments fhould be augmented. For this purpofe, the fmall firft 

 built nurferies are taken to pieces, rebuilt a little farther off, made a 

 fize larger, and their number, at the fame time, is increafed. Thus 

 the animals are continually employed in pulHng down, repairing, or 

 rebuilding their apartments ; and thefe operations they perform with 

 wonderful fagacity, regularity, and forefight. 



One remarkable circumftance regarding the nurferies muft not be 

 omitted. They are always flightly overgrown with a kind oi mould, 

 and plentifully fprinkled with white globules about the fize of a 

 fmall pin's head. Thefe globules, Mr Smeathman at firft conjec- 

 tured to be the eggs ; but, when examined by the microfcope, they 

 evidently appeared to be a fpecies of mufhroom, in fhape refembling 

 our eatable mufhroom when young. When entire, they are white 

 like fnow a little melted and frozen again ; and, when bruifed, they 

 feem to be compofed of an infinite number of pellucid particles, ap- 

 proaching to oval forms, and are with difficulty feparated from each 

 other. The mouldinefs feems likewife to confift of the fame kind 

 of fubftance *. 



The 



* Mr Konig, who examined the termites nefts in the Eaft Indies, conjeftures, 

 that thefe mufhrooms are the food of the young infe£ls> This fuppofition injpliesj 

 that the old ones have a method of providing for and promoting the growth of the 

 mufhroom ; ' a circumftance,' Mr Smeathman remarks, < which, however Itrange to 

 ' thofe unacquainted with the fagacity of thofe itifcfts, I will venture to fay, from 

 '^ many other extraordinary fails I have feen of them, is not very improbabk.' 



