A GUILD OF CARPENTER ANTS 



them through sundry foraging excursions. Many winged 

 forms, the males and females, accompanied or were 

 carried by them. Their future was left to fate; it was 

 their past that now concerned me. 



As the slabs were opened and divided into convenient 

 blocks, there was exposed the work of from eight to ten 

 years, and Camponotid architecture was probably never 

 before so fully laid bare. A section more than two feet 

 high by ten inches thick was fairly honeycombed, the 

 cutting approaching at one point within two inches of 

 the surface. A detailed description of the labyrinth of 

 galleries, halls, and rooms is out of the question; but 

 the specimen shown in the drawing gives a fair idea of 

 the whole. ^ 



One noticed first a crude but evident arrangement 

 of the cells into stories and half-stories, as seen in the 

 mounds and subterranean nests of the mason ants. 

 The surfaces of the floors were uneven, but substantially 

 upon the same level. Some of these stories seemed to 

 have been formed by driving tubular galleries, which 

 were gradually enlarged and finally blended. There 

 was a manifest appearance of corridors or halls, running 

 parallel in series of two, three, or more. These were 

 separated by columns and arches, or by partitions cut 

 very thin, in many places just broken through. At one 

 spot a section of one of these was entirely enclosed, 

 forming a triangular hollow chamber an inch and a 

 quarter high and half an inch wide at the base. It 

 looked like a miniature bay-window, and there was 

 an entrance from the rear. Was this intended for 



* The original blocks are preserved in tlie author's collection of 

 Insect Architecture in the Museum of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia. 



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