432 



HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



wood apparently joined together with gums. A collection of 

 these compact, irregular, and small wooden chambers, not one 

 of which is half an inch in width, is inclosed in a common 

 chamber of clay sometimes as big as a child's head. Inter- 

 mixed with the nurseries lie the magazines, which are cham- 

 bers of clay always well stored with provisions, consisting of 

 particles of wood, gums, and the inspissated juices of plants. 



These magazines and nurseries, separated by small empty 

 chambers and galleries, which run round them or communicate 

 from one to the other, are continued on all sides to the outer 

 wall of the building, and reach up within it two thirds or 

 three fourths of its height. They do not, however, fill up 

 the whole of the lower part of the hill, but are confined to 

 the sides, leaving an open area in the middle, under the dome, 

 very much resembling the nave of an old cathedral, having its 

 roof supported by three or four very large Gothic arches, of 

 which those in the middle of the area are sometimes two and 

 three feet high, but as they recede on each side, rapidly dimi- 

 nish like the arches of aisles in perspective. A flattisli roof, 

 imperforated in order to keep out the wet, if the dome should 

 chance to be injured, covers the top of the assemblage of 

 chambers, nurseries, &c. ; and the area, which is a short height 

 above the royal chamber, has a flattish floor, also water-proof, 

 and so contrived as to let any rain that may chance to get in 

 run off into the subterraneous passages. 



These passages or galleries, which are of an astonishing 

 size, some being above a foot in diameter and perfectly cy- 

 lindrical, lined with the same kind of clay of which the hill is 

 composed, served originally, like the catacombs in Paris, as 

 the quarries whence the materials of the building were de- 

 rived, and afterwards as the grand outlets by which the Ter- 

 mites carry on their depredations at a distance from their 

 habitations. They run in a sloping direction under the bottom 

 of the hill to the depth of three or four feet, and then branch- 

 ing out horizontally on every side, are carried under ground, 

 near to the surface, to a vast distance. At their entrance 

 into the interior they communicate with other smaller gal- 

 leries, which ascend the inside of the outer shell in a spiral 



