NESTING ARCHITECTURE 



instinct of construction. In order to get a view of the 

 interior of an ant city a mound was sawed through the 

 centre with a large cross-cut saw and one-half thrown 

 aside with shovels. This required vigorous and rapid 

 movements to avoid the attack of the myriad of angry 

 insects thus assaulted in their home. This, however, 

 was less formidable, because the calamity was so unique 

 and terrible like the earthquake shocks which lately 

 wrecked Charleston and San Francisco, Messina and 

 Reggio that the ants at first seemed stunned, and 

 moved about as though distraught. Such an over- 

 throw was beyond their limited powers to grasp. But 

 they soon rallied, and promptly set themselves to restore 

 their ruined commonwealth. Yet the blaze of passion 

 was hot enough on the part of those who swarmed from 

 the quarters untouched by the shovellers. Fortunately, 

 the heat and fury thereof were soon expended. 



Let us examine the interior of the mound thus laid 

 bare. The view of the perpendicular face of the half- 

 cone exposed was truly remarkable (Fig. 29). Tubular 

 galleries three-eighths to half an inch wide rose in regular 

 series one above another, from the base to the domed 

 summit. The cone within was a rough reproduction in 

 soil, and on a gigantic scale, of the celled structure of the 

 combs of bees, wasps, and hornets. 



Throughout this network of galleries were scattered 

 cavernous rooms, the common lodging-places for the 

 young and other dependents, although the galleries 

 also served this end, as well as being the roadways be- 

 tween all parts of the community. It is an amazing 

 structure for so small a creatureling, and must have re- 

 quired immense labor and pains to rear it. That this 

 huge hill of sandy earth, mixed with and fixed by vege- 



41 



