Packard.] 
INSECTS AS ARCHITECTS. 
299 
that on those he saw four men could stand with ease. The 
nests are ornamented with numerous conical turrets, some¬ 
times four or five feet high. The walls of this dome are 
exceedingly hard and form a sort of shell protecting an inte¬ 
rior building, divided into u an amazing number of apart¬ 
ments for the king and queen, and the nursing of their 
numerous progeny; or for magazines, which are always 
found well filled with stores and provisions.” These colos¬ 
sal hills begin as little turrets a foot high ; others are built 
near them, the highest one being built in the middle, until 
the spaces between are filled up and the whole built together 
into a single.dome. This outer shell or dome not only pro¬ 
tects and shelters the rooms within, but maintains an equi¬ 
table temperature and moisture within, “very necessary for 
hatching the eggs and cherishing the young ones.” 
In the centre of the inner building near the base is the 
oven-like royal chamber, which is enlarged from an inch to 
six or eight inches or more in the clear as the queen in¬ 
creases in size. Here the king and queen are kept willing 
prisoners, as the entrances are only large enough to admit 
the workers which are much smaller. The royal chamber is 
surrounded by multitudes of smaller apartments which con¬ 
nect with the larger magazines and nurseries. The maga¬ 
zines are filled with provisions consisting of the gum of 
trees in small tears, resembling the sugar about preserved 
fruits. The nurseries containing the eggs and young are 
built of “wooden materials seemingly joined together with 
gums” and situated around the royal chamber. 
All these apartments lead by arched passages into an 
open area or rotunda under the dome, which is compared 
by Smeathman to the nave of a cathedral. This nave “is 
surrounded by three or four very large Gothic-shaped arches, 
which are sometimes two or three feet high next the front 
of the area, but diminish very rapidly as they recede from 
thence like the arches of aisles in perspectives, and are soon 
11 
