i64 HAUNTS AND HOBBIES 



their elevation was equally defective. Instead of rising 

 perpendicularly, they curved from side to side like an 

 ill-constructed chimney. The walls were extremely 

 thin, not thicker than a sheet of ordinary drawing- 

 paper ; they were formed of very minute pellets of 

 earth, which the ants had evidently kneaded and 

 fashioned in the nest below. The pellets were not only 

 moist, but also slightly glutinous. The towers had 

 certainly been erected during the morning, for the 

 walls were still damp ; they had much the appearance 

 of moist brown paper. 



Thin and damp as the walls were, they were, never- 

 theless, evidently very strong, for they supported the 

 weight of the numerous white ants that ran up and 

 down them without yielding or bending in the least. 

 The towers were all erected near together ; several even 

 touched, forming little groups, affording each other 

 mutual support. One of these groups, which consisted 

 of several towers, rested against the stem of a shrub 

 that grew on the side of the path. 



The ants worked only inside the towers ; they worked 

 with extreme rapidity : they came running up the 

 nearly perpendicular wall at full speed, and without 

 apparently any effort. Each ant carried a pellet in his 

 jaws. On reaching the top of the wall he adjusted the 

 pellet very carefully; next he seemed, I thought, to 

 lick it with his tongue ; and that done, he ran down 

 the wall again with the same rapidity that he had 

 ascended it. 



The towers were sufficiently large to enable five or 

 six white ants to ascend and descend at the same time, 



