484 
WHITE ANTS. 
from the hillock. It is always nearly in the shape 
of half an egg, or an obtuse oval within, and may 
be supposed to represent a large oven. In the in- 
fant state of the colony it is not above an inch of 
thereabout in length, but in time will be increased 
to six or eight inches or more in the clear, being 
always in proportion to the size of the queen, who, 
increasing in bulk as in age, at length requires a 
chamber of such dimensions. Its floor is perfectly 
horizontal ; and in large hillocks, sometimes an 
inch thick and upwards, of solid clay. The roof 
also, which is one solid and well turned oval arch, 
is generally of the same solidity, but in some places 
it is not a quarter of an inch thick ; this is on the 
sides where it joins the floor, and where the doors, 
or entrances, are made level therewith at pretty 
equal distances from each other. These entrances 
will not admit any animal larger than the soldiers or 
labourers, so that the king, and the queen (who is, 
at full size, a thousand times the weight of the king) 
can never possibly go out. 
(( The royal chamber, if in a large hillock, is sur- 
rounded by an innumerable quantity of others of 
different sizes, shapes, and dimensions ; but all of 
them arched in one way or another, sometimes cir- 
cular, and sometimes elliptical or oval. These either 
open into each other, or communicate by passages 
as wide, and, being always empty, are evidently made 
for the soldiers and attendants, of whom it will soon 
appear great numbers are necessary, and of course 
always in waiting. 
