Insect Study 



397 



2. Measure one of the pits. How broad across, and how deep? Are 

 all the pits of the same size ? Why ? 



3. What can you see as you look down into the ant-lion's pit? Roll 

 a'tiny pebble in and see what happens ? Watch until an ant comes hurry- 

 ing along and slips into the pit. What happens then? As she struggles 

 to get out how is she knocked back in? What happens to her if she falls 

 to the bottom ? 



4. Take a trowel and dig out the doodle-bug. What is the shape of 

 its body? What part of the insect did you see at the bottom of the pit? 

 Do you know that these great sickle-shaped jaws are hollow tubes for 

 sucking blood? Does the ant-lion eat anything except the blood of its 

 victim ? 



5. Can you see that the ant-lion moves backward more easily than 

 forward ? How are its hind legs formed to help push it backward ? How 

 does this help the ant-lion in holding its prey? How does the big awk- 

 ward body of the ant-lion help to hold it in place at the bottom of the pit 

 when it seizes an ant in its jaws? 



6. AVhat shape is the ant-lion's head? How does it use this head in 

 taking its prey? In digging its pit? 



7. Take a doodle-bug to the schoolroom, place it in a dish of sand, 

 covered with glass, and watch it build its pit. 



8. Read in the entomological books about the cocoon of the ant-lion 

 and what the adult looks like, and then write an ant-lion autobiography. 



Supplementary reading Insect Stories, Kellogg, "The True Story of 

 Morrowbia Jukes." 



THE MOTHER LACE-WING AND THE APHIS-LION 



Teacher's Story 



LITTING leisurely through the air on her green gauze 

 wings, the lace-wing seems like a filmy leaf, broken 

 loose and drifting on the breeze. But there is pur- 

 pose in her flight, and through some instinct she is 

 enabled to seek out an aphis-ridden plant or tree, 

 to which she comes as a friend in need. As she 

 alights upon a leaf, she is scarcely discernible because 

 of the pale green of her delicate body and wings; 

 however, her great globular eyes that shine like gold 

 attract the attention of the careful observer. But 

 though she is so fairy-like in appearance, if you pick 



her up, you will be sorry if your sense of smell is keen, for she exhales a 

 most disagreeable odor when disturbed a habit which probably protects 

 her from birds or other creatures which might otherwise eat her. 



However, if we watch her we shall see that she is a canny creature 

 despite her frivolous appearance ; her actions are surely peculiar. A drop 

 of sticky fluid issues from the tip of her body, and she presses it down on 

 the surface of the leaf; then lifting up her slender abdomen like a distaff, 

 she spins the drop into a thread a half inch long or more, which the air 

 soon dries ; and this silken thread is stiff enough to sustain an oblong egg, 

 as large as the point of a pin, which she lays at the very tip of it. This 

 done she lays another egg in a like manner, and when she is through the 



