organization, from becoming a member of a peace society. In fact, he finds himself helmeted and armed with these bodkins, and having a desire to be useful and to employ these instruments for the good of the community, he engages fiercely in war, as we shall see presently.

In appearance, however, the perfect insect is the most remarkable. Altered in size and figure, and furnished with well made wings, the kings and queens, or rather the titled aristocracy (privileged even in these hat-shaped earth-holes to eat the bread of idleness) of these ant families, grow to an enormous size, and soon weigh as much as thirty of the meagre labourers, while they measure not less than two inches and a half each. But, like well fed paupers, these royal dukes and dames are pronounced by sneering naturalists as helpless, dastardly, and indolent. Forthwith nature wages war against them, and the drivelling swarms of listless loungers are preyed upon by birds, by other species of ants, by carnivorous reptiles, and by men. Their numbers are great at first, but are rapidly reduced, and the few which escape this general vengeance of the enraged republicans without, find shelter from their enemies, and survive to perpetuate the race. Not by chance, however, do these fortunate ones escape; the truth is that, like the children of Israel, the working ants cry out for a king, and gathering from the melie a pair of these half extinguished grandees, elect them as king and queen of the community, leaving those not so elected to perish.

"The little industrious creatures," says Smeathman, "immediately enclose them in a small chamber of clay suitable to their size, into which at first they but leave one entrance, large enough for themselves and the soldiers to go in and out at, but much too little for either of the royal pair to use; and when necessity obliges them to make more entrances, such entrances are never larger: so that the voluntary subjects charge themselves with the task of providing for the offspring of their sovereigns, as well as of working and fighting for them, until they have raised a progeny capable of at least dividing the task with them."

At this time another change comes over the fortune of the monarchs, and the queen is declared to be in a happy state of promise. The body of the queen is, indeed, literally full of eggs, and in some cases the abdomen is increased to at least two thousand times that of the remainder of the body. When the eggs are perfectly formed, they begin to be protruded, and they come forth so quickly that about sixty are deposited every minute, which is equal to eighty-six thousand four hundred in a

1 King.

2 Queen.

day, and thirty-one million, five hundred and thirty-six thousand in a year. The labours of the workers in attending the queen are at this time most trying, for as she cannot then move about, they are under the necessity of carrying off the eggs as they are laid, to the nurseries. If the cell of a queen be broken open during the process of laying, she is seen to be surrounded by myriads of labourers all engaged in carrying off the eggs. When these eggs are hatched, the young ones are

provided with everything necessary until they grow to the state of workers, when they take their respective places, and drive round the never flagging wheel of white ant industry.

The nests of the termites are sometimes concealed in the earth, or in the interior of trees, and through those they' bore galleries in such a manner, that, though the outer surface is left untouched, they fall to pieces on the slightest violence. Sometimes the nests are elevated several feet above the surface of the ground, and have a pyramidal form. They make their way with the utmost ease into trunks and boxes, destroying everything they contain, constructing their galleries, and sometimes taking up their abode in them. In consequence of this, Humboldt informs us, it is almost impossible to meet with papers or documents in any of the warmer parts of equinoctial America which extend further back than sixty years. Parish registers and city charters go the same way, and many a republican constitution has been eaten up in a night. Cloth, linen, and books, are equally to their taste; and in one night they will destroy all the boots and shoes left in their way. Forbes, in his "Oriental Memoirs," tells us that, on surveying a room which had been locked up during an absence of a few weeks, he observed a number of ant-works advancing towards some prints and drawings, in English frames, the glasses of which appeared unusually dull, and the frames covered with dust. "On attempting," he adds, "to wipe it off, I was astonished to find the glasses fixed to the wall, not suspended in frames as I had left them, but completely surrounded with incrustation, cemented by the white ants, who had actually eaten up the deal frames and backboards, and the greater part of the paper, and left the glasses upheld by the incrustation or covered way, which they had formed during their depredations." A microscope which Mr. Smeathman had left for a few months at Tobago, he found, on returning, completely eaten up, with the exception of the glass and metal. Their cells were built all round the pedestal and tube, and the glass and lacquer-work were spoilt by their

gummy incrustations. Another party of these ants took a bacchanalian turn, and, pouncing on a cask of Madeira wine, devoured the staves, and let out the wine. When the termites appear, chests, drawers, wainscoting, rafterjoists, and everything of a vegetable origin, disappear; and, perhaps, on retiring to rest, you are astonished, the moment you prostrate yourself on the bed, to find that it crumbles into powder beneath you, and, that, in fact, the whole substance has been eaten up, except the outsides of all the frames and trappings, which, till touched, look as sound as ever. If a stake in a hedge has not taken root and vegetated, it becomes their business to destroy it; if it has a sound bark, they will enter at the bottom, and eat out all but the bark, which will remain, and exhibit the appearance of a solid stick; but if they cannot trust the bark to remain whole while they devour the inner wood, they cover the whole stick with mortar, and it then looks as if it had been dipped in thick mud, and the mud left to dry on. To work then they go, and the mud-wall, or outside coat of the stick, is all they leave behind them. "These excavated trees," says Smeathman, " have deceived me two or three times in running; for in attempting to step two or three feet high, I might as well have attempted to step on a cloud; and have come down with such unexpected violence, that, beside shaking my teeth and bones almost to dislocation, I have been precipitated, head foremost, amongst the neighbouring bushes."

We hinted at the pugnacity of the soldiery of these ants, and we now come to deal more directly with this part of the subject. Upon making a breach in one of their castles, general alarm is excited; the labourers retire within doors, and the vindictive troops appear at the point of danger. Immediately upon striking the wall, a soldier walks out, and, after ascertaining the nature of the dange" retires to give the alarm. Upon this, two or three more hurry out, and the breach is soon filled with soldiers, rushing out to defend their citadel, which they do with indescribable fury. In biting, they frequently strike their forceps on the wall, which makes a cracking noise, somewhat shriller than the

ticking of a watch. The labourers within seem to understand this, and reply to it with a kind of hissing. "I one day," says Smith, "attempted to knock off the top of one of these hills with my cane; but the stroke had no other effect than to bring thousands of insects out of doors to see what was the matter, upon which I took to my heels, and ran away as fast as I could." "If in their rage," Smeathman says, "they come in contact with the hands or legs of their assailant, they make their mandibles meet through the skin at every stroke, and inflict considerable pain, while the blood from one of the wounds will stain the stocking to more than an inch in width." They never quit their hold, but will suffer themselves to be pulled limb from limb without any attempt to escape. They are thorough Spartans, and fight to the very last, disputing every inch of ground so well as often to drive away the negroes, who are without shoes, and to make the white people bleed plentifully through their stockings.

Latreille has discovered a fifth degree of citizenship in these communities, which differ little from the workers, except in having the rudiments of wings, or rather wings folded up, as happens with butterflies in the state of crysalis. These are probably only workers in a more advanced state of growth, and it is equally probable, judging by the aid of a broad analogy, that Latreille is wrong in supposing that the soldiers are perfect neuters, and not undeveloped females, seeing that sex is a fundamental principle of all organised existence, and that in the case of bees and common ants, the supposed neuters are of this undeveloped kind.

A CONTRAST.

IN the latter part of September, on one of those cloudy days often met with, at that season of the year, when the sun was obscured by a thick and hazy atmosphere, while a gentle, drizzling rain was noiselessly falling, and the