Insect artizans and their work . onstructed nest is so large that itmight be thought to be the combined effort of acolony of Social Wasps, but it is entirely the workof one female. The entrance to it takes the formof a projecting funnel. The East Indian Rhygchium nitidulum makesclay pots, like Eumenes, and stores them with cater-pillars. The pots are attached to wood. Of anallied species—R. brunneum—Sir Richard Owencomplained that it obliterates Egyptian hiero-glyphics by plastering its mud cells among thousands of years ago, when an ancientEgyptian was being converted into a mummy,
Insect artizans and their work . onstructed nest is so large that itmight be thought to be the combined effort of acolony of Social Wasps, but it is entirely the workof one female. The entrance to it takes the formof a projecting funnel. The East Indian Rhygchium nitidulum makesclay pots, like Eumenes, and stores them with cater-pillars. The pots are attached to wood. Of anallied species—R. brunneum—Sir Richard Owencomplained that it obliterates Egyptian hiero-glyphics by plastering its mud cells among thousands of years ago, when an ancientEgyptian was being converted into a mummy, oneof these wasps had the fortune to be wrappedup with him. When, in later times, Dr. Birch,of the British Museum, unrolled the wrappings ofthat mummy the wasp came to light, to provethat Rhygchium brunneum was an ancient Egyptianalso. The most important of the insect masons wehave reserved to the last—the Termites or whiteants. It is probably unnecessary, at this date, toexplain that these insects are not ants at all, and. Plate io Nests of Termites or White Ants. Page 86 These huge erections are sometimes 20 feet in height, and represent the labourof man}- generations of builders. The one in the foreground has been cut open toshow the galleries and passages of the interior, which are not so well-planned andsymmetrical as was formerly believed to be the case. Drawn by T. Carreras.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectinsects, bookyear1919
