The royal chamber, if in a large hillock, is surrounded by a countless
number of others, of different sizes, shapes, and dimensions; but all
of them arched in one way or another--sometimes elliptical or oval.
These either open into each other, or communicate by passages as wide
as, and are evidently made for, the soldiers and attendants, of whom
great numbers are necessary, and always in waiting. These apartments
are joined by the magazines and nurseries. The former are chambers of
clay, and are always well filled with provisions, which, to the naked
eye, seem to consist of the raspings of wood, and plants which the
termites destroy, but are found by the microscope to be principally
the gums or inspissated juices of plants. These are thrown together in
little masses, some of which are finer than others, and resemble the
sugar about preserved fruits; others are like tears of gum, one quite
transparent, another like amber, a third brown, and a fourth quite
opaque, as we see often in parcels of ordinary gums. These magazines
are intermixed with the nurseries, which are buildings totally
different from the rest of the apartments; for these are composed
entirely of wooden materials, seemingly joined together with gums. Mr.
Smeathman calls them the nurseries because they are invariably occupied
by the eggs and young ones, which appear at first in the shape of
labourers, but white as snow. These buildings are exceedingly compact,
and divided into many very small irregular-shaped chambers, not one
of which is to be found of half an inch in width. They are placed all
round, and as near as possible to the royal apartments.
When the nest is in the infant state, the nurseries are close to the
royal chambers; but as, in process of time, the queen enlarges, it is
necessary to enlarge the chamber for her accommodation; and as she
then lays a greater number of eggs, and requires a greater number of
attendants, so it is necessary to enlarge and 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 of a size
larger, and the number of them increased at the same time. Thus they
continually enlarge their apartments, pull down, repair, or rebuild,
according to their wants, with a degree of sagacity, regularity, and
foresight, not even imitated by any other kind of animals or insects.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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