the common father and mother, on whose safety depend the happiness and even existence of the whole community; and whom these faithful subjects never abandon even in the last distress.

These little busy creatures are taught by Providence always to work under cover. If they have to travel over a rock, or up a tree, they vault, with a coping of earth, the route they mean to pursue, and they form subterranean paths and tunnels, some of a diameter wider than the bore of a large cannon, on all sides from their habitation, to their various objects of attack, or which sloping down, (for they cannot well mount a surface quite perpendicular,) penetrate to the depth of three or four feet under their nests into the earth, till they arrive at a soil proper to be used in the erection of their buildings. Were they, indeed, to expose themselves, the race would soon be annihilated by their innumerable enemies. If any accident happen to their various structures, or if they are dislodged from any of their covered ways, they are active and expeditious in repairing it; and in a single night they will restore a gallery of three or four yards in length. If, attacking the nest, you divide it into halves, leaving the royal chamber, and thus lay open thousands of apartments, all will be shut up with their sheets of clay by the next morning; nay, even if the whole be demolished, provided the king and the queen be left, every interstice between the ruins, at which either cold or wet can possibly enter, will be covered, and, in a year, the building will be raised nearly to its pristine size and grandeur.

Besides building and repairing, a great deal of their time is occupied in making necessary alterations in their mansion and its approaches. The royal presence chamber, as the female increases in size, must be gradually enlarged; the nurseries must be removed to a greater distance; the chambers and interior of the nest receive daily accessions, to provide for a daily increasing population; and the direction of their covered ways must often be varied, when the old stock of provision is exhausted, and new sources are discovered.

The collection of provisions for the use of the colony is another employment, which necessarily calls for incessant attention: these, to the naked eye, appear like raspings of wood; but when examined by the microscope, they are found to consist chiefly of gums and the inspissated juices of plants, which, formed into little masses, are stored up in magazines made of clay.

When any one is bold enough to attack their nest, and make a breach in its walls, the labourers, who are incapable of fighting, retire within, and give way to another description of its inhabitants, whose office it is to defend the fortress when

assailed oy enemies; these, as observed before, are the neuters or soldiers. If the breach be made in a slight part of the building, one of these comes out to reconnoitre; he then retires and gives the alarm. Two or three others next appear, scrambling as fast as they can one after the other; to these succeed a large body, who rush forth with as much speed as the breach will permit, their numbers continually increasing during the attack. It is not easy to describe the rage and fury by which these diminutive heroes seem actuated. In their haste they frequently miss their hold, and tumble down the sides of their hill they soon, however, recover themselves, and, being blind, bite every thing they run against. If the attack proceeds, the bustle and agitation increase to a tenfold degree, and their fury is raised to its highest pitch. Wo to him whose hands or legs they can come at! for they will make their fanged jaws meet at the very first stroke, drawing as much blood as will counterpoise their whole body, and never quitting their hold, even though they are pulled limb from limb. The naked legs of the negroes expose them frequently to this injury; and the stockings of the Europeans are not thick enough to defend them.

On the other hand, if, after the first attack, you get a little out of the way, giving them no further interruption, supposing the assailant of their citadel is gone beyond their reach, in less than half an hour they will retire into the nest; and before they have all entered, you will see the labourers in motion, hastening in various directions towards the breach, every one carrying in his mouth a mass of mortar, half as big as his body, ready tempered; this mortar is made of the finest parts of the gravel, which they probably select in the subterranean pits or passages before described, which, worked up to a proper consistence, hardens to the solid substance resembling stone, of which their nests are constructed: they never appear to embarrass or interrupt one another. By the united labours of such an infinite host of creatures, the wall soon rises, and the breach is repaired.

While the labourers are thus employed, almost all the soldiers have retired quite out of sight, except here and there one, who saunters about amongst the labourers, but never assists in the work. One in particular places himself close to the wall which they are building; and turning himself leisurely on all sides, as if to survey the proceedings, appears to act the part of an overseer of the works. Every now and then, at the interval of a minute or two, by lifting up his head and striking his forceps upon the wall of the nest, he makes a particular noise, which is answered by a loud hiss from all the labourers, and appears to be a signal for dispatch; for, every time it is heard, they may be seen to redouble their pace, and

apply to their work with increased diligence. Renew the attack, and this amusing scene will be repeated: in rush the labourers, all disappearing in a few seconds, and out march the military, as numerous and vindictive as before. When all is once more quiet, the busy labourers re-appear, and resume their work, and the soldiers vanish. Repeat the experiment a hundred times, and the same will always be the result; you will never find, be the peril or emergency ever so great, that one order attempts to fight, or the other to work.

We have seen how solicitous the termites are to move and work under cover, and concealed from observation: this, however, is not always the case; there is a species larger than T. bellicosus, whose proceedings we have been principally describing, which Mr. Smeathman calls the marching Termes (Termes viarum). He was once passing through a thick forest, when on a sudden, a loud hiss, like that of serpents, struck him with alarm. The next step produced a repetition of the sound, which he then recognized to be that of white ants; yet he was surprised at seeing none of their hills or covering ways. Following the noise, to his great astonishment and delight, he saw an army of these creatures emerging from a hole in the ground; their number was prodigious, and they marched with the utmost celerity. When they had proceeded about a yard, they divided into two columns, chiefly composed of labourers, about fifteen abreast, and following each other in close order, and going straight forward. Here and there was seen a soldier, carrying his vast head with apparent difficulty, and looking like an ox in a flock of sheep, who marched on in the same manner. At the distance of a foot or two from the columns, many other soldiers were to be seen, standing still or pacing about as if upon the look-out, lest some enemy should suddenly surprise their unwarlike comrades; other soldiers, (which was the most extraordinary and amusing part of the scene,) having mounted some plants, and placed themselves on the points of their leaves, elevated from ten to fifteen inches from the ground, hung over the army marching below, and by striking their forceps upon the leaf, produced at intervals the noise above-mentioned. To this signal the whole army returned a hiss, and obeyed it by increasing their pace. The soldiers at these signal-stations sat quite still during the interval of silence, except now and then making a slight turn of the head, and seemed as solicitous to keep their posts as regular sentinels. The two columns of this army united, after continuing separate from twelve to fifteen paces, having in no part been above three yards asunder, and then descended into the earth by two or three holes. Mr. Smeathman continued watching them for above an hour, during which time their numbers appeared neither to increase nor diminish: the sol

diers, however, who quitted the line of march and acted as sentinels, became much more numerous before he quitted the spot. The larvæ and neuters of this species are furnished with eyes.

The societies of Termes lucifergus, discovered by Latreille, at Bourdeaux, are very numerous; but instead of erecting artificial nests, they make their lodgment in the trunks of pines and oaks, where the branches diverge from the tree. They eat the wood nearest the bark, or the alburnum, without attacking the interior, and bore a vast number of holes and irregular galleries. That part of the wood appears moist, and is covered with little gelatinous particles, not unlike gumarabic. These insects seem to be furnished with an acid of a very penetrating odour, which, perhaps, is useful to them for penetrating the wood. The soldiers in these societies are as about one to twenty-five of the labourers.

The anonymous author of the observations on the termites of Ceylon, seems to have discovered a sentry-box in his nests. "I found," says he, "in a very small cell in the middle of the solid mass, (a cell about half an inch in height, and very narrow,) a larva with an enormous head. Two of these individuals were in the same cell; one of the two seemed placed as sentinel at the entrance of the cell. I amused myself by forcing the door two or three times; the sentinel immediately appeared, and only retreated when the door was on the point of being stopped up, which was done by the labourers."

THE GREEN ANTS.-Captain Cook gives the following account of a very peculiar kind of ants, which he met with at Botany Bay. "They are as green as a leaf. They live upon trees, where they build their nests. The nests are of a very curious structure: they are formed by bending down several of the leaves, each of which is as broad as a man's hand; they glue the points of them together, so as to form a purse. The viscus used for this purpose is an animal juice, which nature has enabled them to elaborate. Their method of first bending down the leaves, our naturalists had not an opportunity of observing; but they saw thousands uniting all their strength to hold them in this position, while other busy multitudes were employed within, in applying the gluten that was to prevent their returning back. To satisfy themselves that the leaves were bent and held down by the efforts of these diminutive artificers, our people disturbed them in their work, and, as soon as they were driven from their station, the leaves on which they were employed sprang up with a force much greater than they could have thought them able to conquer, by any combination of their strength."

THE VISITING ANTS.-At Paramaribo, a Dutch colony in the province of Surinam, there is a species of ants, which the Portuguese call visiting ants: they march in troops, and as soon as they appear, all the coffers and chests of drawers are laid open, which they clear of rats, mice, and a peculiar sct of insect in that country, called cackerlacks, and of other noxious animals. If any one chance to molest them, they fall upon him, and tear in pieces his stockings and shoes. Their visits are rare; and sometimes they do not appear for three years.-Templeman's Obs. vol. i. p. 36.

We conclude this chapter with an account of THE ANTLION.-There is no insect more remarkable for its dexterity than the ant-lion, though its figure announces nothing extraordinary. It nearly resembles the woodlouse; its body being provided with six feet, composed of several membranous rings, and terminated in a point. Its head, flat and square, is armed with two moveable crooked horns, whose singular structure shews how admirable Nature is, even in the least of her works.

This insect is the most subtle and dangerous enemy the ant has; the plans which he forms to ensnare his prey, are very ingenious. He mines a portion of land in the form of a funnel, at the bottom of which he waits to seize the ants, which coming by chance to the edge of the precipice, are thence hurried down to their merciless foe. In order to dig it, he first traces in the sand a circular furrow, whose circumference forms precisely the mouth of the funnel, the diameter of which is always equal to the depth he gives to his ditch. When he has determined the space of this opening, and traced the first furrow, he immediately digs a second, concentric to the other, in order to throw out all the sand contained in the first circle. He makes all these operations with his head, which serves him instead of a shovel, and its flat and square form admirably adapts it to this purpose. He also takes some sand with one of his fore feet, to throw it beyond the first furrow; and this work is repeated till the insect has reached a certain depth of sand. Sometimes, in digging, he meets with grains of sand larger than usual, or with little bits of dry earth, which he will not suffer to remain in his tunnel; of these he disencumbers himself by a sudden and well-timed manœuvre of his head. Should he find particles yet larger, he endeavours to push them away with his back, and he is so assiduous in this labour, that he repeats it six or seven times.

At length the ant-lion comes to collect the fruits of his toil. His nets being once well laid, he has nothing to do but to out himself on the watch; accordingly, immoveable and concealed at the bottom of the ditch which he has dug, he