Microscopical Essays, 



they are never larger ; fo that, of courfe, the voluntary fubje£fe 

 charge themfelves with the tafk of providing for the offspring of 

 their fovereigns, as well as to work and to fight for them, until 

 they Ihall have raifed a progeny capable at leaf! of dividing the 

 tafk with them. 



The bufinefs of propagation, however, foon commences ; and 

 the labourers having conftru&ed a fmall wooden nurfery, as be- 

 fore defcribed, carry the eggs and lodge them there as faft as 

 they can obtain them from the queen. 



About this time a mofl extraordinary change begins to take 

 place in the queen, to which we know nothing fimilar, except in 



the PULEX PENETRANS of LlNN^EUS, the JIGGER of the 



Weft-Indies, and in the different fpecies of coccus cochineal. 

 The abdomen of this female begins gradually to extend and en- 

 large to fuch an enormous fize, that an old queen will have it 

 increafed fo as to be fifteen hundred or two thoufand times the 

 bulk of the reft of her body, and twenty or thirty thoufand times 

 the bulk of a labourer ; the fkin between the fggments of the ab- 

 domen extends in every direction, and at laft the fegments are 

 removed to half an inch diftance from each other, though at firft 

 the length of the whole abdomen is not above half an inch. They 

 preferve their dark-brown colour, and the upper part of the ab- 

 domen is marked with a regular feries of brown bars, from the 

 thorax to the pofterior part of the abdomen, while the intervals 

 between them are covered with a thin, delicate, tranfparent fkin, 

 and appear of a fine cream colour, a little fhaded by the dark 

 colour of the interlines and watery fluid feen here and there be- 

 neath. It is fuppofed that the animal is upwards of two years 



