288 C. H. TURNER. 



Twirling the other end of the thread between my thumb and fore- 

 finger, I gently lowered it to the bottom of the pit. Three times in 

 succession the ant-lion caught hold of the straw with its man- 

 dibles. Each time I jerked the string and thus removed the 

 straw from its grasp. 



Experiment 2. I fastened a dead chinch bug to one end of a silk 

 thread. Twirling the other end of the thread between my thumb and 

 fore-finger, I gently lowered the bug to the bottom of the pit. Im- 

 mediately the ant-lion seized it with its mandibles and held on 

 until, by pulling on the thread, I had drawn the insect partly 

 out of the pit. This experiment was tried with five different 

 individuals. Four responded in the manner just described; the 

 fifth made no response. 



Experiment j . / fastened a piece of cotton to one end of a silk 

 thread. Twirling the other end between my thumb and fore-finger, 

 I gently lowered it to the bottom of the pit. The ant-lion gripped 

 the bit of cotton with its mandibles and held on until I, by pulling 

 on the thread, had dragged the larva partly out of the pit. This 

 experiment was tried with five different individuals. The result 

 was always the same. 



MacLachlan (u), in 1864, placed between two and three dozen 

 ant-lions in a small box of sand and carried them from Fontain- 

 bleu, France, to London. When he arrived, about half of the 

 larvae had been killed and the juices of their bodies extracted by 

 the others. In shipping ant-lions to me from Kansas, Mr. Rau 

 placed a hundred or more in the same small box of dirt. In 

 sorting over the material to place each one in an individual 

 retainer, I always found several dead specimens that looked as 

 though the juices of their bodies had been extracted. Are these 

 deaths caused by cannibalism? To test the matter, an ant-lion 

 was dropped into the pit of another individual. This experiment 

 was repeated over and over again throughout a summer devoted 

 largely to the field study of this creature. In the majority of 

 cases the intruder escaped either by burrowing into the wall of 

 the pit or else by backing out of it. In several instances, how- 

 ever, it became the prey of the rightful owner of the pit. Evi- 

 dently, when opportunity permits, this creature is a cannibal. 



