94 Chapter III. 



lcx:alities. Here it is the size of a thimble, there, the 

 pyramids of the ancient Egyptians are Hke mole-hills 

 in comparison, if we take into consideration the rela- 

 tive size of the builders. Some are in the ground, in 

 clefts of rocks, or concealed by stones, others are 

 under the bark or in the wood of trees. Others again 

 are in the hollow stalk of a plant, or in a gall-nut or 

 in a deserted snail-shell. Now they hang high in the 

 boughs of a tree, now in forests they rise as domes 

 from the level of the ground. Such a nest may be 

 dug, or spun ; it may consist of masonry, or of cavities 

 hollowed out of the earth or of the wood. Sometimes 

 all these modes of operation enter into the same con- 

 struction. In short, the variability as to form, style, 

 or locality is almost unlimited. There is one charac- 

 teristic, however, common to all ant nests, viz: the 

 absence of any uniform architectonic pattern; ant 

 nests are irregular systems of chambers and galleries, 

 giving shelter to the ants and their offspring, and 

 communicating by different openings with the outside 

 world. This very irregularity of their buildings 

 enables the ants to suitably adapt their nests to any 

 locality and to employ any kind of material in their con- 

 struction. The artificial and, as it were, mathematical 

 regularity of the honey-combs of bees^ is entirely 



*) N. Ludwig, in an essay, "Der Zellenbau der Honigbiene," (in 

 "Natur und Offenbarung," 1896, 10th issue, p. 598 ff.), has offered a 

 new explanation of the hexahedral form of the bee-cell and of the three 

 congruent rhombs forming its pyramid-like base. In his opinion the 

 peculiar form of the bee-cell is due only to the construction of the 

 wax combs, each cell being built only in connection with other cells. 

 For the bees are actuated by the impulse of combining round cell-walls 

 bordering on one another, into one single wall and to reduce their 

 thickness by gnawing off both sides as much as possible without peril 

 to their necessary strength. Hence, the flat walls of the form described 



