272 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



the building of walls and stopping up chinks : the latter composes whole 

 stages or stories of it made into a sort of papier maclie with earth and spi- 

 ders' web. 1 



Some ants form their nests of the leaves of trees. One of these was 

 observed by Sir Joseph Banks in New South Wales, which was formed by 

 glueing together several leaves as large as a hand. To keep these leaves 

 in a proper position, thousands of ants united their strength, and if driven 

 away the leaves spring back with great violence. 2 Another species of ant 

 (Myrmtca Kirbii Sykes), found in the Poona Collectorate, India, described 

 by Colonel Sykes, forms its globular battoon- shaped nest, which is com- 

 posed of a congeries of tile-like laminae of cow-dung, with the usual assem- 

 blage of cells and nurseries, &c., composed of the same material, in the 

 branches of trees and shrubs. 3 Another East Indian species (Formica 

 smaragdina) forms its nest of a very thin but double silk-like tissue 4 ; 

 while Formica elata Lund builds its nest on the trunks of trees of earth 

 mixed with leaves, and other species use the hairs of plants for the same 

 purpose. 5 F. bispinosa in Cayenne employs the down enveloping the 

 seeds of the Bombax criba, which it felts into a sort of cottony sub- 

 , stance. 6 



The most profound philosopher, equally with the most incurious of 

 mortals, is struck with astonishment on inspecting the interior of a bee- 

 hive. He beholds a city in miniature. He sees this city divided into 

 regular streets, these streets composed of houses constructed on the most 

 exact geometrical principles and the most symmetrical plan, some serving 

 for store-houses for food, others for the habitations of the citizens, and a 

 few, much more extensive than the rest, destined for the palaces of the 

 sovereign. He perceives that the substance of which the whole city is 

 built is one which man, with all his skill, is unable to fabricate ; and that 

 the edifices in which it is employed are such, as the most expert artist 

 would find himself incompetent to erect. And the whole is the work of 

 a society of insects ! " Quel abime (he exclaims with Bonnet) aux yeux du 

 sage qiCune ruche d'AbeiUes ! Quelle sagesse profonde se cache dans cct 

 abime! Quel philosophe osera le fonder!" Nor have its mysteries yet 

 been fathomed. Philosophers have in all ages devoted their lives to the 

 subject ; from Aristomachus of Soli in Ciliciu, who, we are told by Pliny, 

 for fifty-eight years attended solely to bees, and Philiscus the Thracian, 

 who spent his whole time in forests investigating their manners, to Swam- 

 merdam, Reaumur, Hunter, and Huber of modern times. Still the con- 

 struction of the combs of a bee-hive is a miracle which overwhelms our 

 faculties. 



You are probably aware that the hives with which we provide bees are 

 not essential to their labours, and that they can equally form their city in 

 the hollow of a tree or any other cavity. In whatever situation it is 

 placed, the general plan which they follow is the same. You have seen a 

 honeycomb, and must have observed that it is a flatfish cake, composed of 

 a vast number of cells, for the most part hexagonal, regularly applied to 

 each other's sides, and arranged in two strata or layers placed end to end. 



i Huber, Recherches, &c. 61. 2 Hawkesworth's CooVs Voyages, iii. 223. 



3 Trans. Ent. Soc. Land. i. 101. 4 Ibid. i. proc. Ixxii. 



5 \Vestwood, Mod. Class, of Ins. ii. 223. 



6 Laeordaire, Intr. a VEntom. ii. 503. 



