510 
WHITE ANTS. 
the royal chamber, and, as I often did, preserved it 
for some time in a large glass bowl, all the attendants 
continued running in one direction round the king 
and queen with the utmost solicitude, some of them 
stopping on every circuit at the head of the latter, 
as if to give her something. When they came to 
the extremity of the abdomen, they took the eggs 
from her, and carried them away, and piled them 
carefully together in some part of the chamber, or 
in the bowl under, or behind any pieces of broken 
clay which lay most convenient for the purpose. 
“ Some of these little unhappy creatures would 
ramble from the chamber, as if to explore the cause 
of such horrid ruin and catastrophe to their immense 
building, as it must appear to them; and, after fruit- 
less endeavours to get over the side of the bowl, re- 
turn and mix with the crowd that continue running; 
round their common parents to the last. Others, 
placing themselves along her side, get hold of the 
queen’s vast matrix with their jaws, and pull with 
all their strength so as visibly to lift up the part 
which they fix at ; but, as I never saw any effects 
from these attempts, I never could determine whe- 
ther this pulling was with an intention to remove 
her body, or to stimulate her to move herself, or for 
any other purpose ; but, after many ineffectual tugs, 
they would desist, and join in the crowd running 
round, or assist some of those who are cutting off 
clay from the external parts of the chamber, or some 
of the fragments, and moistening it with the juices 
of their bodies, to begin to work a thin arched shell 
