the Termites of Africa and other hot Climates , iy i 
inch diftanee from each other, though at firfr the length of the 
whole abdomen is not half an inch. They preferve their dark 
brown colour, and the upper part of the abdomen is marked 
with a regular feries of brown bars from the thorax to the 
pofrerior part of the abdomen, while the intervals between 
them are covered with a thin, delicate, tranfparent Ikin, and 
appear of a fme cream colour, a little (haded by the dark 
colour of the inteftines and watery fluid keen here and there 
beneath. 1 conjecture the animal is upward of two years 
old when the abdomen is increased to three inches in length : 
I have fometimes found them of near twice that fize. The 
abdomen is now of an irregular oblong fhape, being con- 
tracted by the muffles of every fegment, and is become one 
vaft matrix full of eggs, which make long circumvolutions 
through an innumerable quantity of very minute veffels that 
circulate round the ijifide in a ferpentine manner, which would 
exercife the ingenuity of a Ikilful anatomift todifleCt and develope. 
This Angular matrix is not more remarkable for its amazing 
extenlion and fize than for its perifraltic motion, which refem« 
hies the undulating of waves, and continues inceffantly without 
any apparent effort of the animal ; fo that one part or other 
alternately is riling and linking in perpetual fucceffion, and the 
matrix feems never at reftT), but is always protruding eggs to 
the amount (as I have frequently counted in old queen s) of 
fixty in a minute or eighty thoufand and upward in one 
day of twenty- four hours ( 2 9>. Thefe 
(ay) “ We may obferve in a queen, diftended with egg, a partition along the 
44 back, and a continued motion from one extreme to the other, much like 
?* that we find in filk-worms.” Account of Engiifh Ants by gould, p. 22, 
C 2§ ) I cannot pofxtively alfert, that the old queens yield eggs fo plentifully at all 
Z z times' 
