282 Insect Architecture. 



" The brown ant (Formica bmnnea), one of the smallest 

 of the ants, is particularly remarkable for the extreme finish 

 of its work. Its body is of a reddish shining brown, its head 

 a little deeper, and the antennas and feet a little lighter in 

 colour. The abdomen is of an obscure brown, the scale 

 narrow, of a square form, and slightly scolloped. The body 

 is one line and two-fifths in length.* 



" This ant, one of the most industrious of its tribe, forms 

 its nest of stories four or five lines in height. The partitions 

 are not more than half a line in thickness ; and the substance 

 of which they are composed is so finely grained, that the 

 inner walls present one smooth unbroken surface. These 

 stories are not horizontal ; they follow the slope of the ant- 

 hill, and lie one upon another to the ground-floor, which 

 communicates with the subterranean lodges. They are not 

 always, however, arranged with the same regularity, for these 

 ants do not follow an invariable plan; it appears, on the 

 contrary, that nature has allowed them a certain latitude in 

 this respect, and that they can, according to circumstances, 

 modify them to their wish ; but however fantastical their 

 habitations may appear, we always observe they have been 

 formed by concentrical stories. On examining each story 

 separately, we observe a number of cavities or halls, lodges of 

 narrower dimensions, and long galleries, which serve for 

 general communication. The arched ceilings covering the 

 most spacious places are supported either by little columns, 

 slender walls, or by regular buttresses. We also notice 

 chambers, that have but one entrance, communicating with 

 the lower story, and large open spaces, serving as a kind of 

 cross-road (carrefour), in which all the streets terminate. 



" Such is the manner in which the habitations of these 

 ants are constructed. Upon opening them, we commonly 

 find the apartments, as well as the large open spaces, filled 

 with adult ants ; and always observed their pupae collected 

 in the apartments more or less near the surface. This, how- 

 ever, seems regulated by the hour of the day, and the tempera- 



* A line is the twelfth part of the old French inch. See Companion to the 

 Almanac for 1830, p. 114. 



