ARCHITECTURE OF ANTS. 91 
certained the internal arrangement of 
their habitations, it was still an object of 
discovery, how ants, working with a sub- 
stance so hard, could trace out and finish 
works so extremely delicate, with the as- 
sistance only of their teeth, how they 
could soften the earth, for the purpose 
of mining, kneading, and building with 
it, and what cement they employed to 
unite its several particles into one mass. 
Did it depend upon a sort of mucilage or 
resin, or some other liquid furnished by 
the ants themselves, similar to what the 
mason-bee employs in building the nest 
to which it gives so much solidity? I 
ought, perhaps, to have analysed the 
earth of which these ant-hills are com- 
habitation. With this view, and for their greater 
security, they collect into a compact mass, and 
keep firm hold of each other, previously attaching 
one of the extremities to some neighbouring plant, 
or fixed point of support, leaving the other end free 
and floating on the surface of the water, as long as 
the inundation (which usually lasts a few days) con- 
tinues—T, 
