PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 39 
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 pristine 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-cham- 
ber, as the female increases in size, must be gradually 
enlarged, ‘the nurseries must be removed to a greater 
distance, the chambers and exterior of the nest receive 
daily accessions to provide for a daily increasing popu- 
lation—and the direction of their covered ways must 
often be varied, when the old stock of provision is ex- 
hausted and new discovered. 
The collection of provisions for the use of the colony 
is another employment, which necessarily calls for inces- 
sant attention: these to the naked eye appear like rasp- 
ings 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 inspissated juices of 
plants, which, formed into little masses, are stored up in 
magazines made of clay. 
When any one is bold enough to attack their nest and 
make a breach in its walis, the labourers, who are inca- 
pable of fighting, retire within, and give place to another 
description of its inhabitants, whose office it is to defend 
