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tecture. Different labourers convey small masses of this ductile material between their 

 mandibles, and with the same instrument they spread and mould it to their will, the 

 antenna? accompanying every movement. They render, all firm by pressing the surface 

 lightly with their fore feet , and however numerous the masses of clay composing these 

 walls, and though connected by no glutinous material, they appear when finished one 

 single layer, well united, consolidated and smoothed. Having traced the plan of then- 

 structure, by placing here and there the foundations of the pillars and partition-walls, 

 they add successively new portions ; and when the walls of a gallery or apartment, which 

 are half a line thick, are elevated about half an inch in height, they join them by spring- 

 ing a flattish arch or roof from one side to the other. Nothing can be a more interesting 

 spectacle than one of these cities while building. In one place vertical walls form the 

 outline, which communicate with different corridors by openings made in the masonry ; 

 in another we see a true saloon, whose vaults are supported by numerous pillars ; and 

 further on are the cross ways or squares where several streets meet, and whose roofs, 

 though often more than two inches across, the ants are under no difficulty in construct- 

 ing, beginning the sides of the arch in the angle formed by two walls, and extending 

 them by successive layers of clay till they meet ; while crowds of masons arrive from all 

 parts with their particle of mortar, and work with a regularity, harmony, and activity, 

 which can never enough be admired. So assiduous are they in their operatioDs, that they 

 will complete a storey with all its saloons, vaulted roofs, partitions and galleries, in seven 

 or eight hours. If they begin a storey, and for want of moisture are unable to finish it, 

 they pull down again all the crumbling apartments that are not covered in. 



"Another species of ant (J/, fusca) are also masons. When they wish to heighten 

 their habitations, they begin by covering the top with a thick layer of clay, which they 

 transport from the interior. In this layer they trace out the plan of the new storey, first 

 hollowing out litttle cavities of almost equal depth at different distances from each other, 

 and of a size adapted for their purposes. The elevations of earth left between them serve 

 for bases to the interior walls, which, when they have removed all the loose earth from 

 the floors of the apartments, and reduced the foundations to a due thickness, they heighten, 

 and lastly cover all in. M. Huber saw a single working ant make and cover in a gallery 

 which was two or three inches long, and of which the interior was rendered perfectly con- 

 cave without assistance. 



"The societies of F.fidiginosa make their habitations in the trunks of old oaks or 

 willow trees, gnawing the wood into numberless storeys more or less horizontal, the ceil- 

 ings and floors of which are about five or six lines asunder, black, and as thin as card, 

 sometimes supported by vertical partitions, forming an infinity of apartments which 

 communicate by small apertures ; at others by small light cylindrical pillars furnished 

 with a base and capital which are arranged in colonnades, leaving a communication per- 

 fectly free throughout the whole extent of the storey. 



"Two other tribes of carpenter ants (F. ceihiops and F. fiava ) use sawdust in forming 

 their buildings. The former applies this material only to the building of walls and stop- 

 ping up chinks; the latter composes whole stages or storeys of it made into a sort of papier 

 mache with earth and spider's web." 



A species of ant (Atta, barbara) has been found by Moggridge actually to make its 

 nest in solid sandstone rock at Mentone in the south of Europe. He states that he 

 traced some workers to a part of the sandstone rock where steps had recently been hacked 

 out leading to some terraces and thus by accident discovered the nest, which he thus 

 describes : — " I soon saw that the ants entered and came out from three or four small 

 passages in the cleft surfaces of the rock, and that their nest actually lay in the sandstone 

 itself. Having contrived to wedge off several large flakes of the rock, which was soft in 

 most places and might be scooped out with a strong knife, I discovered that though some 

 of the passages of the ants followed the lines of cleavage and the cracks made by the fine 

 wiry fibres of the bushes growing on the surface, others were frequently made ifi the form 

 of tubular tunnels through the living rock. Without the aid of hammer and chisel it was 

 not possible to follow the galleries and to secure specimens of the mined rock ; but on the 

 next day I returned armed with tools, and with the assistance of a friend quarried out a 

 portion of the nest, tracing it down eventually to twenty-three inches below the surface 



