Packard.] 
INSECTS AS ARCHITECTS. 
301 
the nests within one hundred yards of your house, the in¬ 
habitants of those which are left unmolested farther off will 
nevertheless carry on their subterraneous galleries, and in¬ 
vade the goods and merchandizes contained in it by sap and 
mine, and do great mischief, if you are not very circum¬ 
spect.” Smeathman then remarks that the galleries are 
necessarily large, as they are the “great thoroughfares for 
all the laborers and soldiers going forth or returning upon 
any business whatever, whether fetching clay, wood, water or 
provisions; and they are certainly well calculated for the 
purposes to which they are applied, by the spiral slope which 
is given them, for if they were perpendicular the laborers 
would not be able to carry on their building with so much 
facility, as they ascend a perpendicular with great difficulty, 
and the soldiers can scarce do it at all. It is on this account 
that sometimes a road like a ledge is made on the perpen¬ 
dicular side of any part of the building within their hill, 
which is flat on the upper surface, and half an inch wide, 
and ascends gradually like a staircase, or like those roads 
which are cut on the sides of hills and mountains, that would 
otherwise be inaccessible; by which, and similar contri¬ 
vances, they travel with great facility to every interior part. 
“This too is probably the cause of their building a kind 
of bridge of one vast arch, which answers the purpose of a 
flight of stairs from the floor of the area to some opening 
on the side of one of the columns which support the great 
arches, which must shorten the distance exceedingly to those 
labourers who have the eggs to carry from the royal chamber 
to some of the upper nurseries, which in some hills would 
be four or five feet in the straightest line and much more if 
carried through all the winding passages which lead through 
the inner chambers and apartments.” 
Whether the work of these white ants is due to the opera¬ 
tions of a “blind instinct” or unconscious automatism may 
well be doubted. It should be borne in mind also that the 
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