Reaumur (ii. 106) in certain seasons found these patches of eggs so numerous, that in the Bois de Boulogne there was scarcely an oak, the under side of the branches of which were not covered by them for an extent of seven or eight feet. He informs us that the eggs are not hatched till the following spring.
[364] Wiener Verzeich. 8vo. 75.
[365] Curtis Brit. Ent. t. 117.
[366] De Geer, ii. 452.
[367] Kalm's Travels, ii. 7.
[368] The same intelligent gentleman related to me, that a person having taken some land at Bahia in the Brazils, he was compelled by these ants, which were so numerous as to render every effort to destroy them ineffectual, to relinquish the occupation of it. Their nests were excavated to the astonishing depth of fourteen feet. Merian Insect. Sur. 18. Smeathman on Termites, Phil. Trans. lxxi. 39. note 35.
[369] Stedman, ii. 142.
[370] Hist. Nat. l. xi. c. 12.
[371] Curtis Brit. Ent. t. 60.
[372] Lewin in Linn. Trans. iii. 1.—Curtis in do. i. 86.