THE ROYAL BODY-GUAED. 



able for its peristaltic motion (in this reaembling the female ant), 

 ■which, like the undulations of water, produces a perpetual and 

 successive rise and fall over its whole surface, and occasions a 

 constant extrusion of the eggs, amounting sometimes in old females 

 to sixty in a minute, or eighty thousand and upwards in twenty- 

 four hours. As these females live two years in their perfect state, 

 how astonishing must he the number produced in that time ! 



19. This incessant extrusion of eggs must call for the attention 

 of a large number of the workers in the royal chamber (and indeed 

 it is always fuU of them), to take them as they come forth and 

 carry them to the nurseries ; in which, when hatched, they are 

 provided with food, and receive every necessary attention until 

 they are able to shift for themselves. One remarkable circum- 

 stance attends these nurseries. They are always covered with a 

 kind of mould, amongst which arise munerous globules about the 

 size of a small pin's head. This probably is a species of Mucor ; and 

 by Mr. Konig, who found them also in nests of an East India 

 species of Termes, is conjectured^to he the food of the larvse. 



20. The royal ceU has in it a kind of body-guard to the royal 

 pair that inhabit it ; and the surrounding apartments always 

 contain many, both labourers and soldiers in waiting, that they 

 may successively attend upon and defend the common father and 

 mother on whose safety depend the happiness and even existence 

 of the whole community, and whom these faithful subjects never 

 abandon, even in their last distress. 



21. The habitations of the Termites, which are generally of 

 considerable magnitude, vary in form, arrangement, and position, 

 according to the species. Those of the Termes hellicosus, de- 

 scribed above, have generally a sugar-loaf or hay-cock form, and 

 are from ten to twelve feet high. In the parts of Africa where the 

 insect prevails, these structures are so numerous that it is scarcely 

 possible to find a spot from which they are not visible in all 

 directions within fifty or sixty yards. In the neighbourhood of 

 Senegal, according to Adanson, their number and magnitude is 

 so great that they cannot be distinguished from the native 

 villages. 



22. When first erected, the external surfaces of these conical- 

 shaped habitations consist of naked clay, but in these fertile 

 climates the seeds of herbage traiisported by the wind are speedily 

 deposited upon them, which germinating soon clothe them with 

 the same vegetation as that which covers the surrounding soil, 

 and when in the dry and warm season this vegetable covering is 

 scorched, they assume the appearance of large hay-cocks. 



23. These vast mounds are formed of earth which has been 

 excavated by the workers from extensive tunnels which have 



103 



