The royal cell has besides some soldiers in it, a kind of body guard to the royal pair that inhabit it; and the surrounding apartments contain always many both labourers and soldiers in waiting, that they may successively attend upon and defend 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.
The manner in which the Termites feed the young brood, before they commence their active life and are admitted to share in the labours of the nest, has not, as far as I know, been recorded by any writer: I shall therefore leave them in their nurseries, and introduce you to the bustling scene which these creatures exhibit in their first state after they are become useful. To do this, in vain should I carry you to one of their nests—you would scarcely see a single one stirring—though, perhaps, under your feet there would be millions going and returning by a thousand different ways. Unless I possessed the power of Asmodeus in Le Diable Boiteux, of showing you their houses and covered ways with their roofs removed, you would return home as wise as you came; for 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. This circumstance has deceived the author of the MS. account of those in Ceylon, who, speaking of the nests of these insects in that island, which he describes as twelve feet high, observes, that "they may be considered as a large city, which contains a great number of houses, and these houses an infinite number of cells or apartments:——these cells appear to me to communicate with each other, but not the houses. I have convinced myself, by bringing together the broken walls of one of the cavities of the nest or cone, that it does not communicate with any other, nor with the exterior of the cone—a very curious circumstance, which I will not undertake to explain. Other cavities communicate by a very narrow tunnel." By not looking for subterranean communications, he was probably led into this error.
You have before heard of their diligence in building. Does any accident happen to their various structures, or are they dislodged from any of their covered ways, they are still more active and expeditious in repairing. Getting out of sight as soon as possible,—and they run as fast or faster than any insect of their size,—in a single night they will restore a gallery of three or four yards in length. If, attacking the nest, you divide it in 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 exterior 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 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;—and they are, as you have seen, great destroyers of timber, whether wrought or unwrought:—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 place to another description of its inhabitants, whose office it is to defend the fortress when assailed by 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 ten-fold 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 European are not sufficient to defend him.
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[47], ready tempered:—this mortar is made of the finer 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. As fast as they come up, each sticks its burthen upon the breach; and this is done with so much regularity and dispatch, that although thousands, nay millions, are employed, 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 them, 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 with 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 reappear, 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.
You 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 I 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 recognised to be that of white ants; yet he was surprised at seeing none of their hills or covered 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, 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 before 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 intervals 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 for twelve or 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 soldiers, 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 lucifugus, discovered by Latreille at Bourdeaux, are very numerous; but instead of erecting artificial nests, they make their lodgement in the trunks of pines and oaks, where the branches diverge from the tree. They eat the wood the 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 gum-arabic. These insects seem to be furnished with an acid of a very penetrating odour, which perhaps is useful to them for softening the wood[48]. The soldiers in these societies are as about one to twenty-five of the labourers[49]. 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 to be stopped up, which was done in three minutes by the labourers."