Note 2 — DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL ANTS MENTIONED IN THESE RESEARCHES.

I shall here add an observation, which I omitted to insert in the chapter on Architecture, which was communicated to me by the inhabitants of the Alps.

Those little Yellow Ants, that are in possession of the pucerons or aphides, serve the purpose of a compass to the Mountaineers, when they are enshrouded in thick fogs, or have lost their way during the night. Their habitations, which are more common, and more elevated in mountains than elsewhere, take an oblong and almost regular shape. They lie in a direction east and west. Their summit, and the greatest slope, always faces the east: but they incline also on the opposite side. I have verified, upon thousands of these ant-hills, this observation of the shepherds. I found a trifling number of exceptions; but only in those instances, where these hillocks had been deranged by men, or other animals. They do not preserve this form in the plains, where they are more exposed to such accidents.—A.