ijz Mr. smeathman’s Accomit of 
Thefe eggs are inftantly taken from her body by her atten- 
dants (of whom there always are, in the royal chamber and 
the galleries adjacent, a fufficient number in waiting) and car- 
ried to the nurferies, which in a great neft may fome of them 
be four or five feet di-ftant in a flraight line, and confequently 
much farther by their winding galleries. Here, after they 
are hatched, the young are attended and provided with 
every thing neceflary until they are able to fhift for them- 
felves, and take their fhare of the labours of the community,, 
The foregoing, I flatter myfelf, is an accurate defcription 
and account of the Hermes beliicofus or fpeeies- that builds the 
large neffs in its different ffates, 
Thofe which build either the roofed turrets or the neffs in 
the trees, feem in mofi in fiances to have a ffrong refemblance to 
them, both in their form and oeconomy, going through the 
fame changes from the egg to the winged hate. The queens 
alfo increafe to a great fuse when. compared with the labourers 
but very fhort of thofe queens before defcrihed. The larged: 
are from about an inch to an inch and a. half long, and not 
much thicker than a common quill. There is the fame kind of 
periflaltic motion in the abdomen, but in a much fmaller de* 
times, but the protruding them being the- conference of the periflaltic motion,.- 
it would' feem involuntary on their parts, and the number, or nearly fo, always- 
indifpenfable; : the aftonifliing- multitudes of inhabitants found in their nefts- alfo. 
countenance this opinion ftr.ongly. 
(29) Since, the reading of this paper,. Mr. John hunter, fo celebrated for his 
great fkill and experience in comparative anatomy, has differed two young queens. 
He finds the abdomen, contains two ovaria,.in: each;of which are many hundred ova- 
dufts, . and in each of thefe ova-dufts a. vail many eggs ; fo that there feems no doubt 
of the faft, as the matrix, of a f ull-grown queen mill, be calculated for the pr.oduftion 
and yielding of a prodigious number of eggs. He has alfo.diffefted the kings ; 
The refult. of thelvdifteftions., with fome further particulars, will be related, in 
mother pagers 
