368 GENERAL ADAPTIVENESS. 



vanced much by the introduction of western civilisation.' 

 Some birds give up the use of moss in favour of wool in 

 nest-making or lining. The yellow-hammer uses man's 

 thready twine, and ribbon in the attachment of its nest 

 (Houzeau). 



Wasps, in their nest-making, have been known to make 

 use of coloured paper shavings covering certain strawberry 

 beds in a garden, reducing them to pulp secundum artem. The 

 observer describes the regularity of the undulating lines of 

 colour which were carried round and round the cannon-ball- 

 like nest that was suspended to the branch of an apple tree. 1 

 The President of the Entomological Society of London, 

 in February 1875, exhibited a nest of Pollistes gallica, a wasp 

 caught on the Esplanade at Corfu, of which nest the cells 

 were partly constructed of coloured paper taken from some 

 posted play-bills ('Nature'). In these two cases the colour 

 of the paper may have partly been an attraction. 



Some leaf-cutting ants ventilate their underground gal- 

 leried dwellings, regulating their atmosphere both as to 

 temperature and moisture by opening or closing certain 

 apertures, and by taking care that the fragments of leaves 

 which they carry into these chambers are neither too dry 

 nor too damp (Belt). The same ants tunnel under, so as 

 to avoid crossing over, the rails of a tramway, making fresh 

 tunnels when the old ones are intentionally stopped up. 

 Certain African ants construct chimneys or air-shafts for 

 their nests in case of floods, the shaft opening above the 

 high- water level. 



The repair of injury in works of construction involves, 

 inter alia, perception of weakness, and of the necessity of 

 remedying it by greater strength, while it calls forth energy 

 as well as unanimity in co-operation. Drone or other bees 

 consolidate or prop up a tottering comb by the construction 

 of buttresses, pillars, or other supports, as has frequently 

 been proved in experiments made by Huber or others with a 

 view to test their sagacity in this respect ; or they fasten 

 weak combs more securely. In other words, they erect tem- 



1 < Glasgow Weekly Herald,' January 13, 1875. 



