222 



The ant-lions made their obconic pits wherever they could se- 

 cure protection from rain, and waited at the bottom for an 

 unwary insect to walk into the trap. A tiny surface-burrow 

 in open sand, like that of a mole, was made by a small carahid 

 larva. The most curious work seen, was that of a small active 

 microlepidopterous larva, which webs together a tube of sand, 

 usually beginning at the l)ase of a plant, and extending it long 

 distances (two or three feet), up to the tops of the stems. We 

 have found these web tubes on Onac/iri and several other herba- 

 ceous plants. The adult was reared by Mr. J. J. Davis, and named 

 by the Bureau of Entomology O/cfJunifcs )lhin<l/aiHi. Discrep- 

 ancies in the biology of that species and ours lead us to think 

 that an error has crept in somewhere. The web closely re- 

 sembles that of FrIoiHqjfcri/.r iicljnlifera, described and figured 

 by Daecke ('05), which he found ou huckleberry and sand myr- 

 tle growing ou white sand in New Jersey; but Mr. Daecke has 

 seen our larva, and says it is not the same as his. 



Turning now to the tufted and moderately dense vegetation 

 of the neighboring areas of open waste land, too sandy for cul- 

 tivation or even for pasturage (PL XVIII., Fig. 1), there is 

 found an apparently inexhaustible variety of insect life. Grass- 

 hoppers swarm everywhere here. MelnHopJiis inn/iisf/jx'/uns ifi 

 as numerous here as M. f(')inir-nil>nnn ou the prairie pastures. 

 Af/('nc()ft('fi.r ticH(l(l('ri,Psiiii(H<i, nwlTniclnirhachis. as well as the 

 more familiar D/ssosteira and Ilijipisciis rugosns, are seen in fall. 

 and H/pjiisciis j)h<i'iiiropf('rns Siud H. lialdcmanii in June. About 

 the Devil's Neck. Ampliitonni)^ liirolor. a species of the Great 

 Plains, was now and then taken in such ground. In short 

 growths of coai-se grass at the Moline Sand Hill were large 

 numbers of Orp/ui/e/la spcciosa. Upon the vegetation of the 

 waste areas mentioned were d^jcanthus 4-pimvt(itus, BacKiiculiis 

 bldfelilci/i, and Coiiorepliahis rohiistiis, — the latter, head down, 

 simulating a grass leaf, — also C(niijii//(ira)if/i(i. Neoffitj/ossa siilrl- 

 /"ro//.v, and a host of others. The ('iiiitpi/hndjtflnf wdt^ not con- 

 fined here to Amhrusia hiilcidata, upon which we uniformly 

 found it in southern Illinois. Here ant-lion adults fluttered 



