280 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



partitions, having no communication except by a few 

 oval apertures. Such is the nature of these works, 

 remarkable for their delicacy and lightness. 



" In other fragments I found avenues which opened 

 laterally, including portions of walls and transverse 

 partitions, erected here and there within the galleries, 

 so as to form separate chambers. When the work 

 is further advanced, round holes are always observed, 

 encased, as it were, between two pillars cut out in 

 the same wall. These holes in course of time become 

 square, and the pillars, originally arched at both 

 ends, are worked into regular columns by the chisel 

 of our sculptors. This, then, is the second specimen 

 of their art. This portion of the edifice will probably 

 remain in this state. 



" But in another quarter are fragments differently 

 wrought, in which these same partitions, pierced 

 now in every part, and hewn skilfully, are trans- 

 formed into colonnades, which sustain the upper 

 stories, and leave a free communication throughout 

 the whole extent. It can readily be conceived how 

 parallel galleries, hollowed out upon the same plan, 

 and the sides taken down, leaving only from space 

 to space what is necessary to sustain their ceilings, 

 may form an entire story; but as each has been 

 pierced separately, the flooring cannot be very level : 

 this, however, the ants turn to their advantage, since 

 these furrows are better adapted to retain the larvas 

 that may be placed there. 



" The stories constructed in the great roots offer 

 greater irregularity than those in the very body of the 

 tree, arising either from the hardness and interlacing 

 of the fibres, which render the labour more difficult, 

 and obliges the labourers to depart from their accus- 

 tomed manner, or from their not observing in the 

 extremities of their edifice the same arrangement as 

 in the centre ; whatever it be, horizontal stories and 



