232 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Description of the ant-hills. 



carried to the nurseries. Here they are hatched. 

 The young are attended and provided with every 

 thing necessary, until they are able to shift for 

 themselves, and take their share in the labours 

 of the community. 



The ant-hills, as their nests are called, for they 

 are often elevated ten- or twelve feet above the 

 surface of the ground, are nearly of a conical 

 shape; and sometimes so numerous as at a little 

 distance to appear like villages of the negroes. 

 We are assured by Jobson, in his History of 

 Gambia," that some of them are twenty feet 

 high, and that he and his companions have often 

 hidden themselves behind them, to shoot deer 

 and other wild animals. Each hill is composed 

 of an exterior and an interior part. The exterior 

 cover is a large clay shell, shaped like a dome, 

 of strength and magnitude sufficient to inclose 

 and protect the interior building from the inju- 

 ries of the weather, and to defend its numerous 

 inhabitants from the attacks of natural or acci- 

 dental enemies. These hills make their first ap- 

 pearance in the form of conical turrets about a 

 foot high. In a short time the insects erect, at 

 a little distance, other turrets, and go on increas- 

 ing their number and widening their bases, till 

 their underworks are entirely covered with these 

 turrets, which the animals always raise highest 

 in the middle of the hill ; and, by filling up the 

 intervals between each, they collect them, at last, 

 into one great dome. 



