128 



HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



digging cautiously into a natural ant-hill, established upon tlie 

 edge of a garden walk, we were enabled to obtain a pretty com- 

 plete view of the interior structure. There were two stories, 

 composed of large chambers, irregularly oval, communicating 

 with each other by arched galleries, the walls of all which were 

 a.s smooth as if they had been passed over by a plasterer's trowel 



MVRMELFON. 



AMPULEX. 



The floors of the chambers, we remarked, were by no menns 

 either horizontal or level, but all more or less sloped, and 

 exhibiting in each chamber at least two slight depressions of an 

 irregular sluipe. We left the under story of this nest untouched, 

 with the notion that tlic ant might repair the upper galleries, of 

 which we Iiad made a vertical section; but instead of doing so. 



