Chapter VI: Dwellings (3)

These subterranean passages (_c_) are the catacombs of the Termites, and have a very close analogy with those of old and populous human cities. Their origin is similar; they are ancient quarries. The insects hollowed them in obtaining the necessary clay for their labours. Later, when the rains come, they serve as drains to carry off the water which might threaten to invade the dwelling.

Such is the external wall within which a busy population swarms. On passing to the interior let us first enter the ground-floor. In the centre is found the royal chamber (_r_). The walls are extremely strong and are supplied with windows for ventilation, and with doors to enable the Termites to render their services. It is necessary to renew the air in this chamber, which constantly contains more than two thousand insects. The openings are large enough for the passage of the workers, but the queen cannot pass through them. She is therefore a prisoner, as immured as a goddess in her temple. The chain which holds her is the prodigious development of her abdomen. As a virgin she could enter, when fertilised she cannot henceforth go out. She continuously elaborates eggs; every moment one appears at the orifice of the oviduct. The king remains near her, to give his assistance when occasion arises; hence he has received the title, absolutely justified under the circumstances, of Father of the People. Around the couple zealous attendants crowd. There are about two thousand of them, workers and soldiers, licking the two royal captives to remove any dust from their hairs, and bringing them food. As soon as the queen lays an egg, one of the workers hastens to take it gently between its jaws; it is the property of the state, and is carefully carried off to the second storey where the state nursery is situated.

The centre of the ground-floor, therefore, is occupied by the royal apartment; around this, and communicating with it by means of numerous entrances, are a number of cells used by the attendants on the queen (_s_). These little chambers are surrounded by a labyrinth of passages. The central room and its dependencies constitute a solid mass, around which other chambers are grouped. The whole space between it and the general wall is filled by vast storehouses, divided into many very spacious compartments. Within them are piled up the provisions which the Termites harvest every day; they consist especially of gums and the juices of plants, dried and pulverised so as to form a fine powder. Access to this property is given by means of large corridors which cross one another, and conduct to the outside through the horizontal galleries traversing the wall.

Above the whole of this ground-floor rests a thick vault of clay, which forms a strong floor for the first storey (B). This is composed of only a single room; it is put to no use, unless to isolate and support the apartments of the second floor, in the arrangement of which great care is exercised. There are no partitions on this floor, nothing but massive columns of clay to support the ceiling. These columns are more than a metre in height. It is a gigantic cathedral in which the lilliputian architects have displayed considerable art. By means of this immense empty chamber a huge reservoir of air is placed in the very centre of the construction; through the galleries in the external wall it is sufficiently renewed for the purposes of respiration without too great a change in temperature.

The second storey rests on the first. To this the eggs are brought, and here the larvæ go through their evolution. Partitions of clay divide the space into a few large halls (_a_); these are again subdivided, this time not by earth, which is employed throughout the rest of the building, but by materials of a more delicate kind, which are, moreover, very bad conductors of heat (_b_). It is a question, in fact, of maintaining these little chambers at an almost constant temperature, favourable for the development of the eggs. The substances utilised for this purpose are fragments of wood and of gum. The Termites glue them together and thus form the walls of these important cells.

The arrangement of the top storey (D) is also disposed with a view of protecting the young who are the future of the city. It constitutes the attic, situated just beneath the cupola, and contains absolutely nothing; it simply serves to interpose beneath the summit of the edifice and the storey below a layer of air, which is a bad conductor of heat. The chamber devoted to the young is thus placed between two gaseous layers, a precaution which, combined with the choice of material, places it in the very best conditions for protection against the alternation of cold at night and torrid heat during the day.

It is difficult to know which to admire most--the audacity and vastness of the labour undertaken by these insects, or the ingenious foresight by which they ensure to their delicate larvæ a comfortable youth. There can be no doubt that these animals show themselves very superior to Man, taking into consideration his enormous size compared to theirs, in the art of building. Pillars, cupolas, vaults--nothing is too difficult or too complicated for these small and patient labourers.[103]

[103] The earliest comprehensive account of the Termites and
their industries was by Smeathman in the _Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society_, vol. lxxi., 1781, pp.
139-192. Later they were studied by Lespès: "Recherches sur
l'organisation et les moeurs du Termite lucifuge," _Ann. des
Sci. Nat._, 4me Série, t. v., fasc. 4 and 5, Paris,
1856. For a description of the South American Termitarium
see also Bates's _Naturalist on the Amazons_ (unabridged
edition, 1892), pp. 208-214; and for the African Termites of
Victoria Nyanza, a chapter in H. Drummond's _Tropical
Africa_, 1888, pp. 123-158; while Forbes has briefly
described them in Java, _Naturalist's Wanderings in the
Eastern Archipelago_, pp. 73, 74.

The Ants of our own lands do not yield to the Termites in this industry, and their dwellings are models of architecture. As they have been more carefully studied we know more exactly how they work, and the considerable sum of intelligence and initiative which they reveal in the accomplishment of their task. At the foot of hedges, on the outskirts of woods, they raise their frail monuments. The species are not equally skilful, and such differences as we have found in other industries may also be found here. In a general manner it was soon found that Ants do not, like Bees, obey a rigid instinct which ordains the line of conduct under every circumstance, and impels each individual to act so that his efforts are naturally combined and harmonised with those of his neighbours in the workshop. One soon perceives when observing an ant-hill that any individual insect follows, when working, a personal idea which it has conceived, and which it realises without troubling itself about the others. Often these latter are executing a quite contradictory plan. It is rather an anarchistic republic. Happily Ants are not obstinate, and when they see the idea of one of them disengaging itself from the labour commenced, they are content to abandon their own less satisfactory idea and to collaborate in the other's work. They are able, for the rest, to concert plans; the movements of their antennæ are a very complicated language containing many expressions, and the worker who desires the acceptance of his own point of view is not sparing in their use.[104] It sometimes happens that his efforts are vain, and that his companions manoeuvre to thwart his schemes. In the presence of such resistance those who are determined to obtain the adoption of their own plans destroy the labours of their opponents; fierce struggles ensue, and here it is the strongest who becomes the architect-general.

[104] For a discussion of the methods of communication among
Ants, tending to the conclusion that these methods "almost
amount to language," see Lubbock's _Ants, Bees, and Wasps_,
chap. vi. And for a general discussion of language among
animals, see Alix, _L'esprit de nos Bêtes_, pp. 331-367.

The _Formica fusca_ constructs its nest of plastered earth. The different superimposed storeys have been added one by one to the upper part of the old dwelling when the latter became too small for the growing colony. In opening an ant-hill, they are found to be quite distinct from each other; each is divided by a large number of partitions into vaulted compartments. In the larger ones pillars of earth support the ceiling. The rooms communicate with one another by means of bull's-eye passages formed in the separating walls. The whole is small, proportioned to the size of the works, but excellently arranged.

When, in the council of the republic, it has been resolved to raise a common habitation, the workers operate in a singular manner. All the ants scatter themselves abroad, and with extreme activity take fragments of earth between their mandibles and place them on the summit of the dwelling. After some time the result of this microscopical work appears. The ancient roof, strengthened by all this material, becomes a thick terrace which the insects first cover very evenly. The earth, having been brought in grain by grain, is soft and easy to dig. The construction of the new storey begins at first by the hollowing out of a number of trenches. The ants scrape away in places the terrace which they have just made. They thus diminish the thickness of the layer at the spots where rooms, corridors, etc., are to be formed, and with the material thus obtained they form walls, partitions, and pillars. Soon the entire plan of the new storey may be perceived. It differs essentially from that which Man would adopt; in the latter case the walls would be shown by the hollowing out of the foundations; the work of these Hymenoptera, on the contrary, shows them in relief. These first arrangements made, the six-footed architects have only to complete their constructions by new deposits from without. Gradually the storey reaches a sufficient height. It remains to cover it, and this is not the easiest part of the business. The ceiling is formed of vaults going from one wall to another, or from a wall to a column. When one of these vaults is to be small, some millimetres at the most, the _Formica fusca_ constructs it with the help of two ledges, which are made facing each other on the tops of two partitions. These prominences, formed of materials glued together by saliva, are enlarged by additions to their free edges. They advance to meet each other and soon join; it is wonderful to see each insect, following its individual initiative, profit by every twig or fragment capable of bearing any weight, in order to enlarge the overhanging ledges.

_Individual skill and reflection._--This personality in work, which reveals the intelligent effort of each, has certainly its inconveniences for the common work. Badly-concerted operations may not succeed, and Huber witnessed an accident due to this cause.[105] Two walls facing each other were to be united by an arch. A foolish worker had begun to form a horizontal ledge on the summit of one of the walls without paying attention to the fact that the other wall was very much higher. By continuing the project the ceiling would have come against the middle of the opposite ceiling instead of resting on its summit. Another ant passes, examines affairs with an intelligent air, and evidently considers that this sort of work is absurd. Without consideration for the _amour-propre_ of its unskilful fellow-citizen, it demolishes its work, raises the wall that is too low, and re-makes the construction correctly in the presence of the observer. If this incident reveals inconceivable thoughtlessness in one of the members of this serious republic, it also brings to light the judgment, reflection, and decision of which they are capable, as well as a freedom which cannot be found in the works of instinct.

[105] _Recherches sur les Moeurs des Fourmis indigènes_,
pp. 47, 48.

This _Formica fusca_ sometimes finds itself in the presence of other difficulties. It may happen that the hall to be roofed is too large and the arch too considerable to allow of the cohesion of the materials employed. The insects soon become aware of the existence of this embarrassing state of things and remedy it in various ways, either by hastily constructing pillars in the centre of the too large room, or by some other method. Ebrard describes an artifice he has seen employed, which shows to what an extent ants can quickly appreciate and take advantage of the most unforeseen circumstances.[106] A worker was labouring to cover a large cell; two prominences, parts of opposite walls, were advancing towards each other, but there was still a space of from twelve to fifteen millimetres between them, and it seemed no longer possible to burden the two sides without risking a general downfall. The little mason was much disturbed. A graminaceous plant was growing near. The ant seemed anxious to take advantage of it, for it went to it and climbed up the stalk. After having examined and devised, it set about curving it in the direction of the edifice. To attain this object, it placed a little mass of moist earth on the extremity of the leaf, and fixed it there. Under the influence of this weight flexion was produced, but only at the end. This could not satisfy the insect; it became a question of decreasing the resistance at the base. The ant gnawed a little at this spot; the desired result was attained, and the whole length of the leaf became bent over the building in course of construction. To prevent it bending back, and to ensure its remaining adherent to the roof, the worker returned to the plant and placed earth between the sheath and the stalk. This time all difficulties were surmounted, and there was a solid scaffolding to support the materials for the roof.

[106] Ebrard, _Études de Moeurs_, Genève, 1864, p. 3.

Among the _Lasius niger_ the independence of the workers is perhaps still greater; no doubt they do their best to concert their efforts, but they do not succeed so well as if an inevitable instinct impelled them. Notwithstanding the irregularities of the construction, it is possible to recognise in it a whole formed of hollowed, concentric half-spheres; they have been added one after the other to the surface to increase the dwelling. The interval between these clay spheres constitutes a storey, cut up by the partitions which divide it into chambers and communicating galleries; the roofs of the largest halls are supported by numerous pillars. (Fig. 40.)

These ants, as Huber has shown, are highly accomplished in the art of constructing a cupola. When they wish to increase their nest by a new layer, they take advantage of the first wet day, the rain serving to agglutinate and unite the materials. They operate in almost the same way as the _Formica fusca_, though exhibiting more skill and resource as architects; they know better how to calculate beforehand the number of pillars required in a hall of a determined size. As soon as the rain has given the signal for work, they spread themselves abroad and prepare a very thick terrace on the external surface of the dwelling which has become too small. They carry to it small balls of earth ground very fine by their jaws, and then lightly piled up so as to pulverise afresh; these are then spread over the construction with the anterior legs. Then, by hollowing out, the ants trace the plan of the new storey, leaving the walls, partitions, and columns in relief. After having raised these parts to a sufficient height, all work together to cover them with a general ceiling, each ant applying itself to one small corner of the work.

The vaulting is executed by the method already described; horizontal ledges, slanting from the summit of pillar or wall, are formed to meet one another. The insects are intelligent enough to begin their labour at the spots best fitted to give strong support to the overhanging materials, as for instance, at the angle of two walls. There is so much activity among the workers, and they are so anxious to take advantage of the damp, that the storey is sometimes completely finished in seven or eight hours. If the rain suddenly stops in the course of the work, they abandon operations, to complete them as soon as another shower falls.

I have already had occasion to speak of the covered passages and Aphis-pens built by Ants outside their dwellings. Besides these constructions, they also make roads in the fields, tearing up the grass and hollowing out the earth so as to form a beaten path free from the lilliputian bushes in which there would be danger of becoming entangled, on returning to the nest laden with various and often embarrassing burdens.

Nor are Ants by any means alone in exhibiting the results of individual skill and reflection. It will, however, be sufficient to mention only one other example, that furnished by Spiders. McCook, in his great work, after elaborately describing and carefully illustrating the skill exhibited in individual cases by Spiders in their aërial labours, considers himself justified in concluding as follows:--"The manner in which the ends of the radii which terminate upon the herb are wrapped roundabout and braced by the notched zone; the manner in which the wide non-viscid scaffold lines are woven in order to give vantage ground from which to place the close-lying and permanent viscid spirals, upon which the usefulness of the orb depends--all these, to mention no other points, seem to indicate a very delicate perception of those modes (shall I also say principles?) of construction which are continually recognised in the art of the builder, the architect, and the engineer."[107]

[107] _American Spiders_, vol. i. p. 228.

_Dwellings built of hard materials united by mortar._--Among mammals few animals have become so skilful in the art of building houses as the insects we have just been considering. There are, however, two who equal if they do not surpass them--the Musk-rat and its relative, the Beaver.

The Musk-rats of Canada live in colonies on the banks of streams or deep lakes, and construct dwellings which are very well arranged. In their methods we find combined the woven shelter with the house of built earth. Their cabins are established over the highest level of the water and look like little domes. In building them the animals begin by placing reeds in the earth; these they interlace and weave so as to form a sort of vertical mat. They plaster it externally with a layer of mud, which is mixed by means of the paws and smoothed by the tail. At the upper part of the hut the reeds are not pressed together or covered with earth, so that the air may be renewed in the interior. A dwelling of this kind, intended to house six or eight individuals who have combined to build it, may measure up to 65 centimetres in diameter. There is no door directly opening on to the ground. A subterranean gallery starts from the floor and opens out beneath the water. It presents secondary branches, some horizontal, through which the animal goes in search of roots for food, while others descend vertically to pits specially reserved for the disposal of ordure.

But it is, above all, the Beaver (_Castor fiber_) who exhibits the highest qualities as an engineer and mason. This industrious and sagacious Rodent is well adapted to inconvenience the partisans of instinct as an entity, apart from intelligence, which renders animals similar to machines and impels them to effect associated acts, without themselves being able to understand them, and with a fatality and determination from which they can under no circumstance escape.

Beavers now only live in Canada. A few individuals may, however, still be found on the banks of the lower Rhône, in Camargue, and on a few other European rivers. Several centuries ago they existed in the neighbourhood of Paris in considerable numbers. The Bièvre gained its name from the old French word for Beaver, and its resemblance to the English name, as well as to the German (_Biber_), is striking. In the sixteenth century, according to Bishop Magnus of Upsala, the Beaver was still common on the banks of the Rhine, the Danube, and on the shores of the Black Sea, and in the North it still exercised great art in its constructions. In the twelfth century it was found in Scotland and Wales. If we go back to ancient times, we find that Herodotus mentions that the Budini who lived in the neighbourhood of the Black Sea used the skins of the Beavers, which abounded there, on the borders of their garments; and in the time of Pliny the Beaver was so common there that he speaks of it as the Pontic Beaver. Fossil remains of the Beaver have also been found throughout Europe in conjunction with those of the Mammoth and other extinct animals.

But the civilisation of the Beaver has perished in the presence of Man's civilisation, or rather of his persecution. In regions where it is tracked and disturbed by Man the Beaver lives in couples, and is content to hollow out a burrow like the Otter's, instead of showing its consummate art. It merely vegetates, fleeing from enemies who are too strong for it, and depriving itself of a dangerous comfort. But when the security of solitude permits these animals to unite in societies, and to possess, without too much fear, a pond or a stream, they then exhibit all their industry.

They build very well arranged dwellings, although at first sight they look like mere piles of twigs, branches, and logs, heaped in disorder on a small dome of mud. At the edge of a pond each raises his own lodge, and there is no work by the colony in common. If, however, there is a question of inhabiting the bank of a shallow stream, certain preliminary works become necessary. The rodents establish a dam, so that they may possess a large sheet of water which may be of fair depth, and above all constant, not at the mercy of the rise and fall of the stream. A sudden and excessive flood is the one danger likely to prove fatal to these dykes; but even our own constructions are threatened under such circumstances.

When the Beavers, tempted by abundance of willows and poplars, of which they eat the bark and utilise the wood in construction, have chosen a site, and have decided to establish a village on the edge of the water, there are several labours to be successively accomplished. Their first desire is to be in possession of a large number of felled trunks of trees. To obtain them they scatter themselves in the forest bordering the stream and attack saplings of from twenty to thirty centimetres in diameter. They are equipped for this purpose. With their powerful incisors, worked by strong jaws, they can soon gnaw through a tree of this size. But they are capable of attacking trees, even more than 100 cc. in circumference and some forty metres in height, with great skill and adaptability; "no better work could be accomplished by a most highly-finished steel cutting tool, wielded by a muscular human arm" (Martin). They operate seated on their hind quarters, and they make their incision in the wood with a feather edge. It was once supposed that they always take care so to direct their wood-cutting task that the tree may fall on the water-side, but this is by no means the case, and appears to be simply due, as Martin points out, to the fact that trees by the water-side usually slope towards the water. The austerity of labour alternates, it may be added, with the pleasures of the table. From time to time the Beavers remove the bark of the fallen trees, of which they are very fond, and feed on it.

Mr. Lewis H. Morgan studied the American Beaver with great care and thoroughness, more especially on the south-west shore of Lake Superior; he devotes fifty pages to the dams, and it is worth while to quote his preliminary remarks regarding them. "The dam is the principal structure of the beaver. It is also the most important of his erections as it is the most extensive, and because its production and preservation could only be accomplished by patient and long-continued labour. In point of time, also, it precedes the lodge, since the floor of the latter and the entrances to its chamber are constructed with reference to the level of the water in the pond. The object of the dam is the formation of an artificial pond, the principal use of which is the refuge it affords to them when assailed, and the water-connection it gives to their lodges and to their burrows in the banks. Hence, as the level of the pond must, in all cases, rise from one to two feet above these entrances for the protection of the animal from pursuit and capture, the surface-level of the pond must, to a greater or less extent, be subject to their immediate control. As the dam is not an absolute necessity to the beaver for the maintenance of his life, his normal habitation being rather natural ponds and rivers, and burrows in their banks, it is, in itself considered, a remarkable fact that he should have voluntarily transferred himself, by means of dams and ponds of his own construction, from a natural to an artificial mode of life.

"Some of these dams are so extensive as to forbid the supposition that they were the exclusive work of a single pair, or of a single family of beavers; but it does not follow, as has very generally been supposed, that several families, or a colony, unite for the joint construction of a dam. After careful examination of some hundreds of these structures, and of the lodges and burrows attached to many of them, I am altogether satisfied that the larger dams were not the joint-product of the labour of large numbers of beavers working together, and brought thus to immediate completion; but, on the contrary, that they arose from small beginnings, and were built upon year after year, until they finally reached that size which exhausted the capabilities of the location; after which they were maintained for centuries, at the ascertained standard, by constant repairs. So far as my observations have enabled me to form an opinion, I think they were usually, if not invariably, commenced by a single pair, or a single family of beavers; and that when, in the course of time, by the gradual increase of the dam, the pond had become sufficiently enlarged to accommodate more families than one, other families took up their residence upon it, and afterwards contributed by their labour to its maintenance. There is no satisfactory evidence that the American beavers either live or work in colonies; and if some such cases have been observed, it will either be found to be an exception to the general rule, or in consequence of the sudden destruction of a work upon the maintenance of which a number of families were at the time depending.

"The great age of the larger dams is shown by their size, by the large amount of solid materials they contain, and by the destruction of the primitive forest within the area of the ponds; and also by the extent of the beaver-meadows along the margins of the streams where dams are maintained, and by the hummocks formed upon them by and through the annual growth and decay of vegetation in separate hills. These meadows were undoubtedly covered with trees adapted to a wet soil when the dams were constructed. It must have required long periods of time to destroy every vestige of the ancient forest by the increased saturation of the earth, accompanied with occasional overflows from the streams. The evidence from these and other sources tends to show that these dams have existed in the same places for hundreds and thousands of years, and that they have been maintained by a system of continuous repairs.

"At the place selected for the construction of a dam, the ground is usually firm and often stony, and when across the channel of a flowing stream, a hard rather than a soft bottom is preferred. Such places are necessarily unfavourable for the insertion of stakes in the ground, if such were, in fact, their practice in building dams. The theory upon which beaver-dams are constructed is perfectly simple, and involves no such necessity. Soft earth, intermixed with vegetable fibre, is used to form an embankment, with sticks, brush, and poles embedded within these materials to bind them together, and to impart to them the requisite solidity to resist the effects both of pressure and of saturation. Small sticks and brush are used, in the first instance, with mud and earth and stones for down-weight. Consequently these dams are extremely rude at their commencement, and they do not attain their remarkably artistic appearance until after they have been raised to a considerable height, and have been maintained, by a system of annual repairs, for a number of years."[108]

[108] L. H. Morgan, _The American Beaver and his Works_,
Philadelphia, 1868, pp. 82-86.

There are two different kinds of beaver-dams, although they are both constructed on the same principle. One, the stick-dam, consists of interlaced stick and pole work below, with an embankment of earth raised with the same material upon the upper or water face. This is usually found in brooks or large streams with ill-defined banks. The other, the solid-bank dam, is not so common nor so interesting, and is usually found on those parts of the same stream where the banks are well defined, the channel deep, and the current uniform. In this kind the earth and mud entirely buries the sticks and poles, giving the whole a solid appearance. In the first kind the surplus water percolates through the dam along its entire length, while in the second it is discharged through a single opening in the crest formed for that purpose.

The materials being prepared in the manner I have previously described, the animals make ready to establish their dyke. They intermix their materials--driftwood, green willows, birch, poplars, etc.--in the bed of the river, with mud and stones, so making a solid bank, capable of resisting a great force of water; sometimes the trees will shoot up forming a hedge. The dam has a thickness of from three to four metres at the base, and about sixty centimetres at the upper part. The wall facing up-stream is sloping, that directed down-stream is vertical; this is the best arrangement for supporting the pressure of the mass of water which is thus expended on an inclined surface. In certain cases Beavers carry hydraulic science still further. If the course of the water is not very rapid, they generally make an almost straight dyke, perpendicular to the two banks, as this is then sufficient; but if the current is strong, they curve it so that the convexity is turned up-stream. In this way it is much better fitted to resist. Thus they do not always act in the same way, but arrange their actions so as to adapt them to the conditions of the environment.

The embankment being completed, the animals construct their lodges. Fragments of wood, deprived of the bark, are arranged and united by clay or mud which the Beavers take from the riverside, transport, mix, and work with their fore-paws. During a single night they can collect as much mud at their houses as amounts to some thousands of their small handfuls. They thus plaster their houses with mud every autumn; in the winter this freezes as hard as a stone and protects them from enemies. These cabins form domes from three to four metres in diameter at the base, and from two to two and a half metres in height. The floor is on a level with the surface of the artificial pond. A passage sinks in the earth and opens about one and a half metres below the level of the water, so that it cannot be closed up by ice during the severe winters of these regions.

Within, near the entry, the beavers form, with the aid of a partition, a special compartment to serve as a storehouse, and they there pile up enormous heaps of nenuphar roots as provisions for the days when ice and snow will prevent them from barking the young trunks.

A dwelling of this kind may last for three or four years, and the animal here tranquilly enjoys the fruits of its industry, as long as man fails to discover the retreat; for the beaver can escape by swimming from all carnivorous animals excepting, perhaps, the Otter. During floods the level of the water nearly reaches the hut; if the inundation is prolonged and the animal runs the risk of being asphyxiated beneath his dome, it breaks through the upper part with its teeth and escapes. When the water returns to its bed the beaver comes back, makes the necessary repairs, and resumes the usual peaceful course of its life.[109]

[109] The Beaver has been fully studied by Lewis H. Morgan,
_The American Beaver_, 1868. See also Horace T. Martin's
recent work, _Castorologia, or the History and Traditions of
the Canadian Beaver_, 1892; in an appendix to this work will
be found Samuel Hearne's classical account of the Beaver,
written nearly two hundred years ago, and free from the many
exaggerations and superstitions which have grown up around
this animal.

We have thus seen, from a shapeless hole to these complex dwellings, every possible stage; we have found among animals the rudiments of the different human habitations, certain animals, indeed, having arrived at a degree of civilisation which Man himself in some countries has not yet surpassed, or even indeed yet attained.