HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 285 
downwards, fastened to the sides without any pillars, and having a hole 
through each to admit of access to the uppermost. A nest constructed 
on a similar plan, but having its exterior surface beset with numerous 
conical knobs, is constructed by another South American wasp, remark- 
able 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 (Z'. atrow 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 dimensions. 
Others (as Z’. destructor, T’. arborum 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, I shall confine a minute de- 
scription, are those formed by the Yermes 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 elevation 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 mentioned, 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 resembles. When the 
building has assumed this its final form, the inner turrets, all but the tops, 
which project like pinnacles from different parts of it, are removed, and 
the clay employed over again in other services. 
It is the lower part alone of the building that is occupied by the inhabi- 
tants, The upper portion or dome, which is very strong and solid, is left 
empty, serving principally as a defence from the vicissitudes of the weather, 
and the attacks of natural or accidental enemies, and to keep up in the 
lower part a genial warmth and moisture necessary to the hatching of the 
eggs and cherishing of the young ones. The inhabited portion is occupied 
by the royal chamber, or habitation of the king and queen, the nurseries 
or the young, the storehouses for food, and innumerable galleries, passages, 
and empty rooms, arranged according to the following plan. 
In the centre of the building, just under the apex, and nearly on a level 
1 Reaum. vi. 224, Compare Lacordaire, Introd, d 0 Entom. ii, 508 
2 Annals of Nat. Hist, vii, 315. 
