5H HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



as a child's head. — Intermixed with the nurseries lie the 

 magazines, which are chambers of clay always well 

 stored with provisions, consisting of particles of wood, 

 gums, and the inspissated juices of plants. 



These magazines and nurseries, separated by small 

 empty chambers and galleries, which run round them 

 or communicate from one to the other, are continued on 

 all sides to the outer wall of the building, and reach up 

 within it two-thirds or three-fourths of its height. They 

 do not, however, fill up the whole of the lower part of 

 the hill, but are confined to the sides, leaving an open 

 area in the middle, under the dome, very much resem- 

 bling the nave of an old cathedral, having its roof sup- 

 ported by three or four very large Gothic arches, of which 

 those in the middle of the area are sometimes two and 

 three feet high, but as they recede on each side rapidly 

 diminish like the arches of aisles in perspective. A flat- 

 tish roof, imperforated in order to keep out the wet, if 

 the dome should chance to be injured, covers the top of 

 the assemblage of chambers, nurseries, &c. ; and the 

 area, which is a short height above the royal chamber, 

 has a flattish floor also water-proof, and so contrived as 

 to let any rain that may chance to get in run off into the 

 subterraneous passages. 



These passages or galleries, which are of an astonish- 

 ing size, some being above a foot in diameter and per- 

 fectly cylindrical, lined with the same kind of clay of 

 which the hill is composed, served originally, like the 

 catacombs of Paris, as the quarries whence the materials 

 of the building were derived, and afterwards as the grand 



