HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 3'21 



nests, having their cells exposed without any general envelop, and fixed 

 laterally to the stems of plants, walls, &c., are formed by Polisies gallica, 

 and others of the same genus. 



But all these yield in point of singularity of structure to the habitation 

 of Chartergus nidulans, a native of Cayenne, which constructs its nest of 

 a beautifully polished white and solid pasteboard, impenetrable by the 

 weather. These are in shape somewhat like a bell, often a foot and a 

 half long, or even more, and fixed by their upper end to the branch of a 

 tree from which they are securely suspended. Their interior is composed 

 of numerous concave horizontal combs, with the openings of the cells 

 turned downwards, fastened to the sides without any pillars, and having a 

 hole through each to admit of access to the uppermost.^ A nest con- 

 structed on a similar plan, but having its exterior surface beset with 

 numerous conical knobs, is constructed by another South American wasp, 

 remarkable for collecting honey, for a valuable article on which we are 

 indebted to Mr. Adam White, who has named it Myrapetra scutellaris.^ 



I close my account of the habitations of insects with the description of 

 those constructed by the white ants, or Termites, a tribe alluded to in 

 former letters. 



The different species, which are numerous, build nests of various forms. 

 Some (T. atrox and mordax) construct upon the ground a cylindrical 

 turret of clay about three quarters of a yard high, surrounded by a project- 

 ing conical roof, so as in shape considerably to resemble a mushroom, and 

 composed interiorly of innumerable cells of various figures and dimen- 

 sions. Others (as T. destructor, T. nrborum Sm.) prefer a more elevated 

 site, and build their nests, which are of different sizes, from that of a hat 

 to that of a sugar-cask, and composed of pieces of wood glued together, 

 amongst the branches of trees often seventy or eighty feet high. But by 

 far the most curious habitations, and to which, therefore, J shall confine a 

 minute description, are those formed by the Termes fatalis, a species 

 very common in Guinea and other parts of the coast of Africa, of whose 

 proceedings we have a very particular and interesting account in the 

 71st volume of the Philosophical Transactions, from the pen of Mr. 

 Smeathman. 



These nests are formed entirely of clay, and are generally twelve feet 

 high and broad in proportion, so that when a cluster of them, as is often 

 the case, are placed together, they may be taken for an Indian village, 

 and are in fact sometimes larger than the huts which the natives inhabit. 

 The first process in the erection of these singular structures is the eleva- 

 tion of two or three turrets of clay about a foot high, and in shape like a 

 sugar-loaf. These, which seem to be the scaffolds of the future building, 

 rapidly increase in number and height, until at length being widened at 

 the base, joined at the top into one dome, and consolidated all round 

 into a thick wall of clay, they form a building of the size above men- 

 tioned, and of the shape of a hay-cock, which when clothed, as it 

 generally soon becomes, with a coating of grass, it at a distance very much 



forward stale than another. See Westwood's Mod. Class, of Ins. ii. 250., and Shuckard's 

 Notes on the Pensile Nests of British Wasps in Mag. Nat. Hist. iii. 458. 



' Reaiim. vi. 224. Compare Lacordaire, Introd. d, VEiitom.n. 503. 



* Annals of Nat. Hist. vii. 315. 



