Outwardly, the termite-mound is dotted with little round holes, which are the orifices of so many passages leading into the interior, whilst the interior itself presents the most wonderful arrangement of galleries, halls, nurseries, cells, and chambers that exists in the insect world. First, comes a well-aired, empty attic, situated in the crown of the dome, or, rather, the peak of the sugar-loaf, to take the more typical shape. Beneath it, with a passage between them, is a nursery where, on shelves round the walls, the young termites are hatched. Beneath this, again, is a wide hall supported by lofty pillars, and, lastly, upon the ground floor, a royal chamber, shaped like a beehive, in which the king and queen—being respectively the father and mother of the entire colony—are confined. Around this palace-prison, as it may be called, are clustered the much smaller cells of the workers, from which, as from the other compartments, a number of tunnels, or galleries, lead to the outer circumference of the mound. From the floor[7] of the termitary—as the nest is sometimes called—holes perforate the earth, becoming larger as they descend; but these do not represent any addition to the architecture of the building, being merely the pits from which the materials that have gone to make it, have been extracted. Except the royal cell, the whole of this great edifice—equally remarkable in regard to its size and its architecture—is reared by the worker termites: but this, as being the foundation-stone of the whole, must necessarily, it would seem, be the work of the two founders, there being no one else to help them till after the hatching of the eggs.