Packard.] 



IXSECTS AS ARCHITECTS. 



317 



foot or more from the centre of the pavement. Within these 

 mounds are neatly constructed cells into which the "eggs, 

 young ones, and their stores of grain, are carried in time of 

 rainy seasons." In another place he adds that " some old 

 settlements have a pavement fifteen feet in diameter and a 

 mound in the centre a foot high." The roads extend for 

 half a mile from the " formicar}^," or ant hill. 



One kind of Mexican ant {Pseudomyrma flavidula) is 

 known to live within the spines of the Mimosa, the hole for 

 the entrance and exit of the ants fig. 217. 



being made near the end (Fig. 

 247, a). 



In India, a greenish ant (CEco- 

 phylla smaragdina) is said by Jer- 

 don to form a nest, sometimes a 

 foot in diameter, by drawing living 

 leaves together without detaching 

 them from the branch, and uniting 

 thcin with a fine white web. An- 

 other Indian ant, like the paper 

 wasp, "makes a small nest about Ant nest in thorns, 



half an inch, or rather more, in diameter, of some papyra- 

 ceous material, which it fixes on a leaf." (Jcrdon.) The 

 ants belonging to the genus Crematogaster, and which from 

 their resemblance to a wig are known bj^ the popular name 

 of "Negro-head" in Brazil, according to IMr. F. Smith, 

 " construct their nests on the branches of trees, suspending 

 them in the same way as wasps, to the nests of which they 

 have a close resemblance ; on removing the outer covering, 

 however, they exhibit a, very different construction, being 

 composed of multitudinous, curved, intricate ramifications, 

 all leading to the interior chambers and galleries." 



There are many sand wasps which excavate holes in the 

 ground, and deposit at the bottom of their burrow living 

 but paralyzed insects among which they lay their eggs. A 



29 



