196 
The walls exposed by the removal of the cases in this room pre¬ 
sented an interesting appearance. Along the angle formed by the 
fiooi and the west partition wall ran a covered way which occa¬ 
sionally sent branches up the wall on to the bricks. ‘ Two of these 
branches led to smooth oval holes in the mortar between the 
bricks. Similar covered ways were found on the opposite side of 
this wall in the adjoining room, leading from holes in the mortar 
precisely like those just mentioned. There could be little doubt 
that the ants had tunneled through the solid brick partition wall, 
which was here three feet thick. Similar c )vered galleries ter¬ 
minating in passageways through brick partition walls were found 
connecting all the infested rooms except the fifth above mentioned, 
which was separated from the others bv a wide corridor (See 
Plate XIII, Fig. 2.) * ' V 
Another covered way in the first, or southeast, room ran up the 
base of the outer stone foundation wall for a distance of about 
ten feet, and not less than four openings were detected in the 
mortar between the stones. Ants were seen passing into these 
openings, the largest of which was a little more than one eighth 
of an inch in diameter and nearly circular in section. The others 
were narrow-oval, one sixteenth by three sixteenths of an inch in 
diameter. These orifices were worn smooth, and evidently were 
not accidental. 
ext, on the outside of this foundation wall, and consequently 
quite outside the building, a similar covered way was found upon 
the stones nearly opposite the interior one above described, and 
from this outer passage also tunnels extended into the wall, through 
which white ants were seen passing to and fro in great excitement. 
As no other ants could be found outside—although the entire cir¬ 
cumference of the foundation of the State House wa 3 closely 
searched.—if seems quite probable that these outer and inner works 
communicated with each other through the stone wall itself, which 
v as at this place not less than six feet thick. Indeed, the shape 
of the wall was such that the ants must have burrowed at least 
eight feet through the mortar between the stones in order to make 
this passageway. It is difficult to see what could have been the 
moti\ e of the ants for burrowing into and through the massive 
walls of the foundations of the State House while they still had 
within the rooms occupied by them suitable quarters and abun¬ 
dant food. The fact that burrows in the foundation wall and in 
the brick partitions were occasionally found which did not open on 
the other side makes it seem likely that these insects have a per¬ 
sistent tunneling instinct which leads them to carry their hidden 
explorations in every direction without reference to immediate 
benefits, and that they were in this way led, step by step, to bore 
their way through the foundation wall of the building with the 
final effect to give them access to outdoor situations and sources 
of food supply. 
Similar examples of persistent and extensive tunneling opera¬ 
tions and long covered passageways were found in all the infested 
rooms, and in all of them the shelves and bookcases had been 
