THE FORMICIDA. 201 
a greater or less reasoning power; moreover, he had the 
sood fortune to witness many proceedings which have not 
been seen by other observers. Thus, he describes how the ants 
bring little beams and place them in front of the galleries, the 
entry to which they wish to construct, and how they seek for 
smaller pieces of wood as the operation advances. Having 
observed these interesting manceuvres, Huber wrote :—‘“Is not 
this the art of our carpenters in miniature? Nature seems to 
be everywhere in advance of those inventions of which we, as 
men, are so proud.” Huber is correct, for if careful observers 
of Nature had existed amongst the early races of men, many 
important branches of knowledge and mechanical ideas, which 
civilised nations have taken centuries to discover and to com- 
plete, would have been found out very soon. 
The engraving of the nest of the red ant was drawn from 
Nature in the forest of d’Aunay, near Paris. The rounded form 
of the nest is very evident, and there is a great rent in it, which 
occupies the centre of the mass. The dark holes into which 
working ants are carrying large oval-shaped cocoons, which are 
commonly called eggs, are the commencement of galleries, over 
which small pieces of wood may be noticed fixed in the earth. 
On the left hand side there are some male and female ants, with 
wings, and some workers may be seen close to the tree, pulling 
at a fly which has come within their reach. The whole nest is 
in a great state of activity in consequence of a portion of it 
having lately been broken into. 
It is very interesting to observe how the ants commence to 
build their nests, and the beginning of the work may be seen 
when the overplus of inhabitants of a nest is obliged to leave it in 
order that a new colony may be founded at the foot of some other 
tree. First of all the ants have to do mining work, and they dig 
into the soil with their mandibles, and after prolonged labour they 
manage to make a cavity. Then the little bits of wood and the 
other building materials are sought for, and brought in and stuck 
into the earth, being crossed one over the other in a most ingenious 
manner, so that the chambers, the greater or less sized cells, and 
the galleries, are constructed and strengthened in the lowest part 
of the nest, and then the upper stories are built. If a large ant’s 
