258 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



wood or hill ant {F. riifa) ; but they take care before 

 they fix upon a locality, that it shall produce them 

 all that they require. We are indebted to Huber 

 the younger for the most complete account whicli 

 has hitherto been given of these operations, of which 

 details we shall make free use. 



'^ To form," says this shrewd observer, '■' a correct 

 judgment of the interior arrangement or distribution of 

 an ant-hill, it is necessary to select such as have not 

 been accidentally spoiled, or whose form has not 

 been too much altered by local circumstances; a 

 slight attention v/ill then suffice to shew, that the ha- 

 bitations of the different species are not all constructed 

 after the same system Thus, the hillock raised by 

 the ash-coloured ants will always present thick walls, 

 fabricated with coarse earth, well-marked stories, and 

 large chambers, with vaulted ceilings, resting upon 

 a solid base. We never observe roads, or galleries, 

 properly so called, but large passages, of an oval 

 form, and all around considerable cavities and exten- 

 sive embankments of earth. We further notice, 

 that the little architects observe a certain proportion 

 between the large arched ceinngs and the pillars that 

 are to support them. 



" The brown ant {Formica brunnea), one of the 

 smallest of the ants, is particularly remarkable for 

 the extreme finish of its work. Its body is of a red- 

 dish shining brown, its head a little deeper, and the 

 antennas and feet a little lighter in colour. The ab- 

 domen is of an obscure brown, the scale narrow, of 

 a square form, and slightly scolloped. The body is 

 one line and two fifths in length.* 



^' This ant, one of the most industrious of its tribe, 

 forms its nest of stories, four or five lines in height. 

 The partitions are not more than half a line in thick- 

 ness; and the substance of which they are composed 



* A line is the twelfth part of the old French inch. See 

 Companion to the Almanack for 1830, p. 114. 



