240 TENANTS OF AN OLD FARM. 



with u word of comineiulatiou tor Aunt Hannah's 

 generous opinions, 1 resumed my narrative. 



" Tliere were several large colonies of cutting-ants at 

 j)oints sufficiently near camp for purposes of study. 

 The surface architecture presented two typical forms. 

 One of these was that of a mound twenty-one feet long 

 and about four feet high, which had been accumulated 

 around a large double-trunk live-oak tree {Quercus 

 r I reus), which stood on the side of a road. (Fig. 7i).) 

 The second form was located on a high, llat, up- 

 land prairie, and was a bed of denuded earth, about 

 nine by seven feet in dimensions. It was placed in 

 the midst of the grassy open, but not far from a young 

 grove of forest trees, 



" Over the denuded surface were scattered between 

 twent}- and thirty circular, semi-circular, and S-shaped 

 elevations of fresh earth-pellets. The circular mound- 

 lets had the appearance of a cuspidore, the resemblance 

 being stronger by reason of a round, open entrance or 

 gallery-door in the center. All had been naturally 

 formed l)y the gradual accumulation of the pellets of 

 sandy soil, as they were brought out by the workers 

 and dumped upon the circumference of the heap. The 

 moundlets were from three to four inches high, massed 

 at the base, and gradually sloi)ed oil' toward the top. 

 I found several of these ' beds,' as the Texans call them, 

 and this is doubtless the normal form of the external 

 architecture of the formicary. The live-oak mound 

 was prol^ably formed by accumulations around the tree, 

 caused by the bordering road wliich restricted the limits 



