. Insect architecture. Insects. 270 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. or formicaries. The preceding figure represents a view of one of his formicaries of mason-ants. We have ourselves followed up his observations, both on natural ant-hills and in artificial formicaries. On digging cautiously into a natural ant-hill, esta- blished upon the edge of a garden walk, we were enabled to obtain a pretty complete view of the in- terior structure. There were two stories, composed of large chambers, irregularly oval, communicating with each other by arched galleries, the walls of all which were as smooth and well pol
. Insect architecture. Insects. 270 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. or formicaries. The preceding figure represents a view of one of his formicaries of mason-ants. We have ourselves followed up his observations, both on natural ant-hills and in artificial formicaries. On digging cautiously into a natural ant-hill, esta- blished upon the edge of a garden walk, we were enabled to obtain a pretty complete view of the in- terior structure. There were two stories, composed of large chambers, irregularly oval, communicating with each other by arched galleries, the walls of all which were as smooth and well polished as if they had been passed over by a plasterer's trowel. The floors of the chambers, we remarked, were by no means either horizontal or level, but all more or less sloped, and exhibiting in each chamber at least two slight depressions of an irregular shape. We left the under story of this nest untouched, with the notion that the ants might repair the upper galleries, of which we had made a vertical section ; but instead of doing so they migrated during the day to a large crack, formed by the dryness of the weather, about a yard from their old nest.*. We put a number of yellow ants (Formica fiava), with their eggs and cocoons, into a small glass frame, more than half full of moist sand taken from their native hill, and placed in a sloping position, in order. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Rennie, James, 1787-1867. London, M. A. Nattali
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840, booksubjectinsects, bookyear1846
