278 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



concealed behind the 'doors on guard, whilst the rest 

 either take their repose or engage in different occu- 

 pations in the most perfect security. I was impatient 

 to know what took place in the morning upon these 

 ant-hills, and therefore visited them at an early 

 hour, I found them in the same state in which I 

 had left them the preceding evening. A few ants 

 were wandering about on the surface of the nest, 

 some others issued from time to time from under the 

 margin of their little roofs formed at the entrance of 

 the galleries: others afterwards came forth, who be- 

 gan removing the wooden bars that blockaded the 

 entrance, in Avhich they readily succeeded. This 

 labour occupied them several hours. The passages 

 were at length free, and the materials with which 

 they had been closed, scattered here and there over 

 the ant-hill. Every day, morning and evening, 

 during the fine weather, I was a witness to similar 

 proceedings. On days of rain the doors of all the 

 ant-hills remained closed. When the sky was cloudy 

 in the morning, or rain was indicated, the ants, who 

 seemed to be aware of it, opened but in part their 

 several avenues, and immediately closed them when 

 the rain commenced."* • 



The galleries and chambers which are roofed in 

 as thus described, are very similar to those of the 

 mason-ants, being partly excavated in the earth, and 

 partly built with the clay thence procured. It is in 

 these they pass the night, and also the colder months 

 of the v/inter, when they become torpid or nearly 

 so, and of course require not the winter granaries of 

 corn with which the ancients fabulously furnished 

 them. 



* Huber en Ants, p. 11. 



