Mason -Ants. 283 



ture : for in this respect these ants are endowed with great 

 sensibility, and know the degree of heat best adapted for 

 their young. The ant-hill contains, sometimes, more than 

 twenty stories in its upper portion, and at least as many 

 under the surface of the ground. By this arrangement the 

 ants are enabled, with the greatest facility, to regulate the 

 heat. When a too-burning sun overheats their upper apart- 

 ments, they withdraw their little ones to the bottom of the 

 ant-hill. The ground-floor becoming, in its turn, uninhabit- 

 able during the rainy season, the ants of this species trans- 

 port what most interests them to the higher stories ; and it 

 is there we find them more usually assembled, with their 

 eggs and pupae, when the subterranean apartments are 

 submerged."* 



Ants have a great dislike to water, when it exceeds that 

 of a light shower to moisten their building materials. One 

 species, mentioned by Azara as indigenous to South America, 

 instinctively builds a nest from three to six feet high,t to 

 provide against the inundations during the rainy season. 

 Even this, however, does not always save them from sub- 

 mersion ; and, when that occurs, they are compelled, in order 

 to prevent themselves from being swept away, to form a 

 group somewhat similar to the curtain of the wax-workers of 

 hive-bees (see p. 133). The ants constituting the basis of 

 this group lay hold of some shrub for security, while their 

 companions hold on by them ; and thus the whole colony, 

 forming an animated raft, floats on the surface of the water 

 till the inundation (which seldom continues longer than a 

 day or two) subsides. We confess, however, that we are 

 somewhat sceptical respecting this story, notwithstanding 

 the very high character of the Spanish naturalist. 



It is usual with architectural insects to employ some 

 animal secretion, by way of mortar or size, to temper the 

 materials with which they work ; but the whole economy of 

 ants is so different, that it would be wrong to infer from 

 analogy a similarity in this respect, though the exquisite 



* M. P. Huber on Ants, p. 20. 



f Stedman's Surinam, vol. i. p. 160. 



