NATURAL HISTORY OF AFRICA. 467 
broil them on the coals. Mr Jackson says, that, 
when he was in Barbary in 1799, dishes of locusts 
were frequently served at the principal tables, and 
were esteemed a great delicacy. 
The ant, named by Smeathman Termes bellico- 
sus, is next to the locust, one of the most striking 
and formidable insects of the African continent. 
They build conical nests of loam and clay, from 
ten to twelve feet in height, which are divided 
internally into a variety of cells by thin parti- 
tions. These nests are often very numerous, and, 
when seen from a distance, appear like villages. * 
The cells of the king and queen ants are in the 
centre ; and around these, in a determinate order, 
are series of cells for what are called labourers, or 
working insects ; for soldiers, or those that perform 
no other labour than such as is necessary in the de- 
fence of the nests, and for the young and the ova ; 
and, lastly, for stores or magazines. These ani- 
mals destroy furniture, victuals, clothes, houses, and 
are able to cut through trunks of large trees in a few 
weeks. And, it is worthy of particular remark, that 
the abdomen of the queen ant, in the impregnated 
state, becomes of so enormous a size as to be two 
* Jobson, in his history of Guinea, says that some of them 
are twenty feet high, and that he and his companions have 
often hidden themselves behind them, for the purpose of 
shooting deer and other wild animals. 
