210 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



zerland, it is probable it may yet be discovered in 

 some spot hitherto unexplored, and if so, it will well 

 reward the research of the curious. 



The ant-lion grub being of a grey colour, and hav- 

 ing its body composed of rings, is not unlike a wood- 

 louse (Oniscus), though it is larger, more triangular, 

 has only six legs, and most formidable jaws, in form 

 of a reaping-hook, or a pair of calliper compasses. 

 These jaws, however, are not for masticating, but 

 are perforated and tubular, for the purpose of suck- 

 ing the juices of ants upon which it feeds. Vallisnieri 

 was, therefore, mistaken, as Reaumur well remarks, 

 when he supposed that he had discovered its mouth. 

 Its habits require that it should w'alk backwards, and 

 this is the only species of locomotion which it can 

 perform. Even this sort of motion it executes very 

 slowly; and were it not for the ingenuity of its 

 stratagems, it would fare but sparingly, since its 

 chief food consists of ants, whose activity and swift- 

 ness of foot would otherwise render it impossible 

 for it to make a single capture. Nature, however, 

 in this, as in nearly every other case, has given a 

 compensating power to the individual animal, to 

 balance its privations. The ant-lion is slow — but it 

 is extremely sagacious; — it cannot follow its prey, 

 but it can entrap it. 



The snare which the grub of the ant-lion employs 

 consists of a funnel-shaped excavation formed in 

 loose sand, at the bottom of which it lies in Vv'ait for 

 the ants that chance to stumble over the margin, and 

 cannot, from the looseness of the walls, gain a suffi- 

 cient footing to effect their escape. When the pit- 

 fall is intended to be small, it only thrusts its body 

 backwards into the sand as far as it can, throwing 

 out at intervals the particles which fall in upon it, 

 till it is rendered of the requisite depth. 



By shutting up one of these grubs in a box with 



