126 HOMES WITHOUT HANTJS. 



iLssistance, and the ground must be supposed to be filled with 

 huge boulders, and covered with tree truaks, broken logs, and 

 other impediments. 



The most admirable subterranean architecture is perhaps that 

 of the Brown Akt {Formica brunnea), a species which is not 

 very commonly known in this country, and is probably confined 

 to certain localities. Its habitation and the mode of its con- 

 struction have been carefully noted by M. Huber. 



This ant works mostly at night, and during light, misty rain, 

 the sunbeams being obnoxious, and heavy showers causing much 

 inconvenience. The nest is a most complicated structure, com- 

 posed of a series of stories, often reaching thirty or forty in 

 number, and generally being built in a sloping direction. These 

 stories are not composed of regular cells, like those of the bee, 

 wasp, and hornet, but of chambers and galleries of very irregular 

 form and dimensions, beautifully smoothed in the interior, 

 and about one-fifth of an inch in height. The walls are about 

 the twenty-fourth of an inch in thickness. The object of so 

 many stories is to be able to regulate the heat and moisture of 

 their establishments. If, for example, the sun is not very 

 powerful, and the instinct of the little insects tells them that 

 more heat is required in order to hatch the pupae which are 

 undergoing their metamorphosis, they take up the white burdens 

 and carry them into the upper chambers, where the heat is 

 greater than below. 



Again, if there should be a heavy rain, which floods all the 

 lower stories, nothing is easier for the inhabitants than to remove 

 themselves and brood into the upper sets of chambers, where they 

 will be secure from the inundation. On those days when the 

 sun is peculiarly hot, the ants secure a more equable tempera- 

 ture, by removing the young brood to the central flats, if they can 

 be so called, while they themselves can obtain the needful 

 moisture from the lower parts of the nest, to which the sunbeams 

 cannot penetrate. Were it not for this provision which they 

 instinctively make, all building operations would be stopped 

 during a drought, whereas, by descending to the cellars or crypts 

 of the mansion, the ants can obtain sufficient clay for ordinary 

 work. 



In order to watch the ants closer, Huber constructed a kind 

 of vivarium in which they could work, and supplied them with 



