ij2 Mr. smeathman’s Account 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 diftant in a ftraight 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.. I 
The foregoing, I flatter myfelf, is an accurate defcrlptibn 
and account of the Termes beUicofus or fpecies that builds the 
large nefts in its different ftates. 
Thole which build either the roofed turrets or the nefts In 
the trees, feem in moft inftances to have a ftrong refembfance to 
them, both in their form and oeconomy, going through the 
fame changes from the egg to the winged ftate. The queens 
alfo increafe to a great fize when compared with the labourers ; 
but very Ihort of thofe queens before defcribedi The largeff. 
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 
periftaltic motion in the abdomen,. But in a much fmaller de- 
times,, but the protruding them being , the confequenee of the- periftaltic 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 ftrongly. 
(19) Since the reading of this paper, . Mrs john h-unter-, fo celebrated for his 
great lkill and experience in comparative anatomy, has difledted two young, queens. 
He finds the abdomen contains two ovaria, in each of which are many hundred ova- 
dudfcs, and in each of thefe ova-dudts a vaft many eggs } fo that there feems no doubt r 
of the fatt, as the matrix of a full-grown quetfr muft be calculated for the production 
and yielding of a prodigious number of eggs. He has alfo difledted the kings; 
The refttlt:of thefe diffedtions^ with ibme further particulars, will be related in 
another paper*. 
g ree $ 
