WHITE ANTS. 
486 
increase the number of the adjacent apartments; 
for which purpose the small nurseries which are 
first built are taken to pieces, rebuilt a little further 
off a size bigger, and the number of them increased 
at the same time. Thus they continually enlarge 
their apartments, pull down, repair, or rebuild, ac- 
cording to their wants, with a degree of sagacity, 
regularity, and foresight, not even imitated by any 
other kind of animals that I have yet heard of. 
There is one remarkable circumstance attending the 
nurseries, which I must not at this time omit. They 
are always found slightly overgrown with mould, and 
plentifully sprinkled with white globules about the 
size of a small pin’s head. These at first I took to 
be the eggs ; but, on bringing them to the micro- 
scope, they evidently appeared to be a species of 
mushroom, in shape like our eatable mushroom in 
the young state in which it is pickled. They ap- 
pear, when whole, white like snow a little thawed 
and then frozen again, and, when bruised, seem 
composed of an infinite number of pellucid parti- 
cles, approaching to oval forms and difficult to sepa- 
rate ; the mouldiness seems likewise to be the same 
kind of substance. The nurseries are enclosed in 
chambers of clay, like those which contain the pro- 
visions, but much larger. In the early state of the 
nest they are not bigger than a hazel-nut, but in 
great hills are often as large as a child’s head of a 
year old. 
“ The disposition of the interior parts of these 
hills is pretty much alike, except when some in- 
