NESTING ARCHITECTURE 



until, as the leaves touch and overlap, they are overspun 

 and firmly bound down. And so the work passes from 

 leaf to leaf until a sufficient housing is provided. This 

 process in essential method resembles that which I have 

 studied among spiders, particularly those large native 

 orb-weavers, like Epdra insularis and E. domiciliorum, 

 that build as a domicile large leaf-tents above their 

 great geometric orbwebs. 



It seems almost past belief as a bit of natural archi- 

 tectural ingenuity, but the observer, whom Professor 

 Forel thinks entitled to credit, states that if in clamping 

 the leaves the space separating the edges be overwide 

 for one ant to manage, other workers, from two to five 

 in number, will "join hands" to form a chain, each 

 grasping the body of its neighbor until the last link on 

 one side holds a leaf in its mandibles, while the last link 

 on the other side grasps a leaf with its claws. Thus, all 

 drawing together, the chain is gradually shortened until 

 the breach is closed and spun over. When enough 

 leaves have been fastened together, the whole is over- 

 spun with a compact silk web, and made water-proof. 

 It is then divided into connected living-rooms as 

 required. 



Many ants are opportunists in the choice of a habitat. 

 Instead of working out a nest in earth or wood, they 

 exercise a sort of "squatter sovereignty/' and preempt 

 for use some available locality. For example, I found 

 a large commune of Aphenogaster tennesseensis in an old 

 pine-tree stump at Bellwood, Pennsylvania. Moss 

 and lichens grew freely upon the stump and its great 

 bare roots. In the scant soil that had formed upon 

 the top sundry wild plants were growing, as in a roof- 

 garden. At various places over the surface large, dry 



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