310 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS, 
their innumerable enemies. This circumstance 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 apart. 
ments:—these cells appear to me to communicate with each other, but 
not the houses. Ihave convinced myself, by bringing together the broken 
walls of one of the cavities of the nest or cone, that it does not communi- 
cate with any other, nor with the evterior of the cone,—a very curious 
circumstance, which I will not undertake to explain. Other cavities com. 
municate 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 accident 
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 apart- 
ments, 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 lelt, every interstice between the ruins, at which either cold or wet can 
possibly enter, will be covered, and ina 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-chamber, 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 population ; and the direction of their covered ways must 
often be varied, when the old stock of provision is exhausted and new 
discovered. 
The collection of provisions for the use of the colony is another em- 
ployment, 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 inspissated 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 labourers, 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 
building, one of these comes out to reconnoitre ; he then retires and gives 
the alarm. Two or three others next appear, scrambling as fast as they 
can one after the other ;—to these succeed a large body, who rush forth 
with as much speed as the breach will permit, their numbers continually 
increasing during the attack. It is not easy to describe the rage and fury 
by which these diminutive heroes seem actuated. In their haste they 
frequently miss their hold, and tumble down the sides of their hill: they 
soon, however, recover themselves, and, being blind, bite every thing they 
