480 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



small apartments of different sizes, communicating with 

 each other by means of galleries and arranged in sepa- 

 rate stories, some very deep in the earth, others a con- 

 siderable height above it ; the former for the recep- 

 tion of the young in cold weather and at night, the 

 latter adapted to their use in the day time. In form- 

 ing these, the ants mix the earth excavated from the 

 bottom of the nest with the other materials of which 

 the mount consists, and thus give solidity to the whole. 

 Besides the avenues which join the apartments toge- 

 ther, other galleries varying in dimensions communi- 

 cate with the outside of the nest at the top of the 

 mount. These open doors would seem ill calculated 

 for precluding tlie admission of wet or of nocturnal 

 enemies : but the ants alter their dimensions continu- 

 ally according to circumstances ; and they wholly close 

 them at night, when all gradually retire to the inte- 

 rior, and a few sentinels only are left to guard the 

 gates. On rainy days, too, they keep them shut, and 

 when the sky is cloudy open them partially'^. 



The habitations of these ants are much larger than 

 those of any other species in this country, and some- 

 times as big as a small haycock ; but they are mere 

 molehills when compared with the enormous mounds 

 which other species apparently of the same family, but 

 much larger, construct in warmer climates. Malonet 

 states, that in the forests of Guiana he once saw ant- 

 hills which, though his companion would not suffer him 

 to approach nearer than forty paces for fear of his be- 

 ing devoured, seemed to him to be fifteen or twenty 

 feet high, and thirty or forty in diameter at the base, 



• Huber Itec/icrches sur les Moeurs des Fourmis, p. 2} -29. 



