32 ARCHITECTURE OF ANTS. 
simplicity of these means, I recognised 
the hand of Nature: however, I still 
thought it necessary to make an experi- 
ment to be convinced of the correctness 
of these results. A few days after, I en- 
deavoured to excite them to recommence 
their labours by an artificial shower. 
With this view, I took a very strong 
brush which I plunged in water, and 
passing my hand backwards and for- 
wards over the hairs, produced upon the 
surface of the Ant-hill a very fine dew. 
The ants perceiving from the interior of 
their dwelling, the humidity of the roof, 
prise on visiting my little friends, after a two days’ 
heavy rain, to find, that the repairs were already 
completed, and that the upper surface of their 
habitation presented as smooth a surface as ifa 
trowel had been passed over it; yet all their work 
they had industriously effected by kneading with 
the rain-water, the loose earth into a sort of paste. 
From the nest being situated in the midst of an 
extensive heath, where there could be no supply 
of water, and from its remaining unrepaired during 
the dry weather, it amounts to a full conviction, 
that Ants employ no other cement than water, in 
the construction of their varied habitations. — T. 
