DWELLINGS. 223 



and they are so anxious to take advantage of the 

 damp, that the storey is sometimes completely 

 finished in seven or eight hours. If the rain suddenly 

 stops in the course of the work, they abandon opera- 

 tions, to complete them as soon as another shower falls. 



I have already had occasion to speak of the covered 

 passages and Aphis-pens built by Ants outside their 

 dwellings. Besides these constructions, they also 

 make roads in the fields, tearing up the grass and 

 hollowing out the earth so as to form a beaten path 

 free from the liliputian bushes in which there would 

 be danger of becoming entangled, on returning to the 

 nest laden with various and often embarrassing burdens. 



Nor are Ants by any means alone in exhibiting 

 the results of individual skill and reflection. It will, 

 however, be sufficient to mention only one other 

 example, that furnished by Spiders. McCook, in his 

 great work, after elaborately describing and carefully 

 illustrating the skill exhibited in individual cases by 

 Spiders in their aerial labours, considers himself 

 justified in concluding as follows: — "The manner in 

 which the ends of the radii which terminate upon the 

 herb are wrapped roundabout and braced by the 

 notched zone ; the manner in which the wide non- 

 viscid scaffold lines are woven in order to give 

 vantage ground from which to place the close-lying 

 and permanent viscid spirals, upon which the useful- 

 ness of the orb depends-^all these, to mention no 

 other points, seem to indicate a very delicate per- 

 ception of those modes (shall I also say principles?) 

 of construction which are continually recognised 

 in the art of the builder, the architect, and the 

 engineer,"^ 



1 American Spiders^ vol. i. p. 228. 



