Such insects are called " mj-rmecophil- 

 ous species " or " ant lovers." The 

 man who has done the most in the 

 study of these interesting creatures is 

 Dr. VVasmann, a Jesuit priest, who lives 

 in Holland, and who has devoted many 

 years to this work, and a difficult task 

 it has been! If one digs into an ant- 

 hill the inhabitants are at once alarmed 

 and the greatest confusion results, so 

 that it is necessary to study them in 

 artificial nests in glass jars, or in some 

 other wa}-. 



Although the most of these "ant- 

 loving " insects are strictly subter- 

 ranean species, living their whole lives 

 underground, the ants, among which 

 they live, do most of their foraging 

 above ground, and thus may be taken 

 as typical of a second group of under- 

 ground insects — those which have their 

 homes below ground for protection or 

 concealment, but which themselves 

 live, at least part of the time, above 

 ground. Volumes have been written 

 about the wonderful habits of ants, of 

 their community life, of the division of 

 labor among them, of their slave-mak- 

 ing customs, of their courage, patriot- 

 ism, and indefatigable industry, of 

 their highly developed instinct, which, 

 in fact, becomes real intelligence; so 

 that almost everyone knows the main 

 facts about these wonderful little insects, 

 and we can spend our time to better 

 advantage on those underground crea- 

 tures about which there is less general 

 information. It will suffice to say that 

 most ants hav^e their nests, consisting 

 of tunnels and chambers, underground; 

 that there their queen lays her eggs 

 and the young are carefully tended by 

 workers until they have reached the 

 adult stage, and there the food is stored 

 for use in the winter months. There is 

 a curious kind of ant in the south- 

 western states and Mexico called the 

 honey ant. Certain individuals in a 

 colony of these honey ants have enor- 

 mously distended stomachs and are fed 

 by the other ants with a kind of grape 

 sugar, or honey, during the summer, 

 as they hang suspended by their legs 

 from the roof of an underground cham- 

 ber. When winter comes the other ants 

 are fed by these honey-bearers, which 



give out the stored- up honey from their 

 mouths drop by drop. 



There is an interesting class of un- 

 derground insects which, in their early 

 stages, hide in especially dug pits and 

 lie in wait for their prey, but which, 

 when full grown, live above ground. 

 Such are the ant-lions and the tiger- 

 beetles. The young ant lion is a 

 heavy- bodied, clumsy-looking creature, 

 with very long and sharp jaws, which 

 digs for itself a funnel-shaped pit in 

 loose, dry sand, using its flat head and 

 jaws as a spade in digging. Then it 

 hides itself at the bottom of the pit, 

 its body completely covered with the 

 sand, and waits until some unlucky lit- 

 tle insect comes along and stumbles 

 over the edge of the hollow. The side 

 of the hole is made at such an angle 

 that the sand slips down with the 

 weight of even an ant and carries it 

 towards the open jaws of the ant-lion. 

 Every struggle which the poor creature 

 makes to escape causes the sand to 

 slide down faster, and the ant-lion at 

 the bottom jerks up a shower of sand 

 with its head, which hastens the min- 

 iature avalanche until the poor victim 

 is within reach of the powerful jaws 

 and is devoured. The adult ant-lion is 

 a beautiful, gauzy-winged creature, not 

 at all like its blood-thirsty larva. 



The young tiger-beetle, or "doodle 

 bug," as it is called in the South, 

 digs a straight burrow in hard soil, 

 such a hole as would be made by push- 

 ing a small lead pencil into the ground. 

 This creature, like the young ant-lion, 

 has a clumsy body and powerful jaws, 

 and on its back are two projections 

 armed with hooks which help it to 

 climb up and down in its burrow. It 

 waits for its prey at the mouth of its 

 hole, which it closes with its head, thus 

 making a sort of trap-door. The little 

 insect which steps upon this trap-door 

 doesn't have time to say its prayers 

 before it is devoured by the voracious 

 " doodle." Should a large, strong in- 

 sect walk over the burrow, the tiger- 

 beetle larva retreats precipitately to 

 the bottom of its hole, which is some- 

 times eighteen inches below the surface 

 of the ground. 



There are many other insects which, 



