. Popular science monthly. st ornate, is a smallvariety from one to two feet in height, which occurs in myriads alongthe shores of Lake Tanganyika. It is built in symmetrical tiers, andresembles a pile of small rounded hats, one above another, the rimsdepending like eaves, and sheltering the body of the hill from estimate the amount of earth per acre raised from the water-lineof the subsoil by white ants would not in some districts be an impos-sible task, and it would be found probably that the quantity at least THE WHITE ANT: A THEORY IM equaled that manipulated annually in temperate
. Popular science monthly. st ornate, is a smallvariety from one to two feet in height, which occurs in myriads alongthe shores of Lake Tanganyika. It is built in symmetrical tiers, andresembles a pile of small rounded hats, one above another, the rimsdepending like eaves, and sheltering the body of the hill from estimate the amount of earth per acre raised from the water-lineof the subsoil by white ants would not in some districts be an impos-sible task, and it would be found probably that the quantity at least THE WHITE ANT: A THEORY IM equaled that manipulated annually in temperate regions by the earth-worm. These mounds, however, are more than mere waste-heaps. Likethe corresponding region underground they are built into a mesh-workof tunnels, galleries, and chambers, where the social interests of thecommunity are attended to. The most spacious of these chambers,usually far underground, is very properly allocated to the head of thesociety, the queen. The queen-termite (Fig. 5) is a very rare insect,. Fig. 5.—The Qoeen A\ iutk Ant. and as there are seldom more than one, or at most two, to a colony,and as the royal apartments are hidden far in the earth, few personshave ever seen a queen, and indeed most, if they did happen to comeacross it, from its very singular appearance would refuse to believe thatit had any connection with white ants. It possesses, indeed, the truetermite head (Figs. 6, 7), but there the resemblance to the other mem-bers of the family stops, for the size of the head bears about the sameproportion to the rest of the body as does the tuft on his Glengarry bon-net to a six-foot Highlander. The phenomenal corpulence of theroyal body in the case of the queen-termite is possibly due in part towant of exercise, for once seated upon her throne she never stirs tothe end of her days. She lies there, a large, loathsome cylindricalpackage, two or three inches long, in shape like a sausage, and as
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectscience, bookyear1872
