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LETTER XIV. 



HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



IN forming an estimate of the civilisation and intellectual progress of a 

 newly discovered people, we usually pay attention to their buildings, and 

 other proofs of architectural skill. If we find them, like the wretched in- 

 habitants of Van Diemen's Land, without other abodes than natural ca- 

 verns or miserable penthouses of bark, we at once regard them as the most 

 ignorant and unhumanised of their race. If, like the natives of the South 

 Sea Isles, they have advanced a step further, and enjoy houses formed of 

 timber^ thatched with leaves, and furnished with utensils of different kinds, 

 we are inclined to place them considerably higher in the scale. When, 

 as in the case of ancient Mexico, we discover a nation inhabiting towns, 

 containing stone houses, regularly disposed into streets, we do not hesitate 

 without other inquiry to decide that it must have been civilised in no 

 ordinary degree. And if it were to chance that some future Park in 

 Africa should stumble upon the ruins of a large city, where, in addition to 

 these proofs of science, every building was constructed on just geometrical 

 and architectural principles ; where the materials were so employed as to 

 unite strength with lightness, and a confined site so artfully occupied as to 

 obtain spacious symmetrical apartments, we should eagerly inquire into the 

 history of the inhabitants, and sigh over the remains of a race whose in- 

 tellectual advances we should infer with certainty were not inferior to 

 our own. 



Were we by the same test to estimate the sagacity of the different classes 

 of animals, we should, beyond all doubt, assign the highest place to insects, 

 which, in the construction of their habitations, leave all the rest far behind. 

 The nests of birds, from the rook's rude assemblage of sticks to the pensile 

 dwellings of the tailor bird, wonderful as they doubtless are, are indis- 

 putably eclipsed by the structures formed by many insects ; and the regular 

 villages of the beaver, by far the most sagacious architect amongst qua- 

 drupeds, must yield the palm to a wasps' nest. You will think me here 

 guilty of exaggeration, and that, blinded by my attachment to a favourite 

 pursuit, I am elevating the little objects, which I wish to recommend to 

 your study, to a rank beyond their just claim. So far, however, am I 

 from being conscious of any such prejudice, that I do not hesitate to go 

 further, and assert that the pyramids of Egypt, as the work of man, are 

 not more wonderful for their size and solidity than are the structures built 

 by some insects. 



To describe the most remarkable of these is my present object : and 

 that some method may be observed, I shall in this letter describe the 

 habitations of insects living in a state of solitude, and built each by a 

 single architect ; and in a subsequent one, those of insects living in so- 

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