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LETTER XIV. 



HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



In forming an estimate of the civilization and intellectual progress of a 

 newly discovered people, we usually pay attention to tlieir buildings, and 

 other proofs of architectural skill. If we find them, like the wretched 

 inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land, without other abodes than natural 

 caverns or miserable penthouses of bark, we at once regard them as the 

 most ignorant and unhumanized of their race. If, like the natives of the 

 South Sea Isles, they have advanced a step further, and enjoy houses 

 formed of timber, thatched with leaves, and furnished with utensils of 

 different kinds, we are inclined to place them considerably higher in the 

 scale. When, as in the case of ancient Mexico, we discover a nation 

 inhabiting towns, containing stone houses, regularly disposed into streets, 

 we do not hesitate Vk'itbout other inquiry to decide that it must have been 

 civilizsd in no ordinary degree. And if it were to chance that some 

 future Park in Africa should stumble upon the ruins of a large city, 

 where, in addition to these proofs of science, every building was con- 

 structed on just geometrical and architectural principles ; where the 

 materials were so employed as to unite strength with lightness, and a con- 

 fined site so artfully occupied as to obtain spacious symmetrical apart- 

 ments, we should eagerly inquire into the history of the inhabitants, and 

 sigh over the remains of a race whose intellectual advances we should 

 infer with certainty were not inferior to our own. 



Were we by the same test to estimate the sagacity of the different 

 classes of animals, we should, beyond all doubt, assign the highest place 

 to insects, which, in the construction of their habitations, leave all the rest 

 far behind. The nests of birds, from the rook's rude assemblage of sticks 

 to the pensile dwellings of the tailor bird, wonderful as they doubtless are, 

 are indisputably eclipsed by the structures formed by many insects ; and 

 the regular villages of the beaver, by far the most sagacious architect 

 amongst quadrupeds, must yield the palm to a wasp's nest. You will 

 think me here guilty of exaggeration, and that, blinded by my attach- 

 ment to a favorite pursuit, I am elevating the little objects, which I wish 

 to recommend to your study, to a rank beyond their just claim. So far, 

 however, am I from being conscious of any such prejudice, that I do not 

 hesitate to go further, and assert that the pyramids of Egypt, as the work 

 of man, are not more wonderful for their size and solidity than are the 

 structures built by some insects. 



To describe the most remarkable of these is my present object : and 

 that some method may be observed, I shall in this letter describe the habi- 

 tations of insects living in a state of solitude, and built each by a single 

 architect ; and in a subsequent one, those of insects living in societies, 

 built by the united labors of many. The former class may be conve- 

 niently subdivided into habitations built by the parent insect, not for its 



