VIII 

 ABIDING CITIES 



THE papery nests of wasps are purely tempo- 

 rary empires : the vespine race has " no 

 abiding city here " ; each summer sees the 

 populous homes built afresh from the ground ; each 

 winter sees them unpeopled and demolished. But 

 with ants, which are builders for time, things are 

 quite otherwise. The communities of those clever 

 and intelligent little creatures are tolerably perma- 

 nent ; they go on from year to year, and generation 

 to generation, often for very long periods together. 

 Lest I weary you unnecessarily by a long pre- 

 amble, however, I shall present you with views of 

 one such nest at once, outside and inside, in Nos. i 

 and 2, in order that you may see without delay the 

 curious method of their detailed construction. 



The city whose external lineaments are shown 

 you in the photograph reproduced in No. i is 

 actually situated on St. George's Hill, near Wey- 

 bridge, just ten feet away from the large Scotch 

 fir whose trunk appears on the right of the illus- 

 tration. It is only one among many various types 

 of ants' nests built by different species. From out- 

 side, all you can see of it is a confused mass of dry 



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