32 



PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



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

 indeed it is always full 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 till they are able to shift for themselves. — 

 One remarkable circumstance attends these nurseries — they 

 are always covered with a kind of mould, amongst which arise 

 numerous globules about the size of a small pin's head. This 

 is probably a species of Mucor ; and by Mr. Konig, who 

 found them also in nests of an East India species of Termes, 

 is conjectured to be the food of the larvae. 



The royal cell has, besides some soldiers in it, a kind of 

 body guard to the royal pair that inhabit it ; and the sur- 

 rounding apartments contain always 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. 



The manner in which the Termites feed the young brood 

 before they commence their active life and are admitted to 

 share in the labours of the nest, has not, as far as I know, 

 been recorded by any writer : I shall, therefore, leave them 

 in their nurseries, and introduce you to the bustling scene 

 which these creatures exhibit in their first state after they 

 are become useful. To do this, in vain should I carry you 

 to one of their nests — you would scarcely see a single one 

 stirring — though, perhaps, under your feet there would be 

 millions going and returning by a thousand different ways. 

 Unless I possessed the power of Asmodeus in Le Diable Boi- 

 teux, of showing you their houses and covered ways with 

 their roofs removed, you would return home as wise as you 

 came ; for these little busy creatures are taught by Provi- 

 dence always to work under cover. If they have to travel over 

 a rock or up a tree, they vault with a coping of earth the route 

 they mean to pursue, and they form subterranean paths and 

 tunnels, some of a diameter wider than the bore of a large 

 cannon, on all sides from their habitation to their various ob- 

 jects of attack ; or which sloping down (for they cannot well 



