Marvels of the Universe 695 
[bu tneo, Carreras. 
THE ROYAL CELL. 
The Royal Cell is a compartment in the innermost part of the Ants’ nest. It has only a narrow opening which allows the 
ingress and egress of workers and soldiers, but not of either king or queen. They are, however, always surrounded with a 
guard and a court; while a band of workers carries off the eggs which the queen lays to the Ant nurseries. 
and merely construct a few barriers across the natural hollows of the wood, or make burrows into 
the heart of the rottenness. Some form elaborate hanging nests among the branches after the 
manner of wasps ; others rear enormous structures. For instance, the African warlike Termite, 
already referred to, erects conical hills, which sometimes attain a height of from six to ten feet, and 
a circumference of from twenty-three to thirty-three feet ; while the towers built up in process of 
years by certain Australian Termites occasionally attain a height of twenty-three feet. Another 
Australian species, the ““ Compass Ant,” sets up inverted, wedge-shaped masses of dark-grey mud, 
from four to five feet high. They invariably have the same orientation—the narrow faces of the 
wedge pointing nearly north and south ; possibly this is to avoid the extreme heat of the sun. To 
appreciate the marvel of their construction, we must remember that these huge piles are built up 
fragment by fragment, each atom set in place by the surprising effort of a single insect. 
Termites commonly employ either earth or wood for building purposes, and the raw materials 
are always swallowed before being used—a habit which ensures thorough grinding and amalgama- 
tion, and the extraction of any nourishment which they may contain. For Termites are frugal to 
a fault. Not only do they subject their very “ bricks and mortar”’ to a preliminary digestive 
process ; they actually eat over and over again the same food until (so we must suppose) its last 
atom of nourishment has been extracted. Moreover, the insects devour all refuse matter, and so 
maintain a spotless cleanliness in the nest. 
In some of the more advanced of the termitaria mushrooms are grown for food. The workers 
heap up spongy, yellowish masses of wood pulp in the larger compartments of the nest, and these 
masses soon become plentifully sprinkled with a small, white fungoid growth of a peculiar 
kind, apparently induced by Termite cultivation. The fungus extracts from the wood-pulp its 
nitrogenous matter, and the insects thus secure a supply of concentrated food, which is said to 
be employed chiefly for feeding the younger members of the community. When a portion of 
