96 THE LIFE OF AN INSECT. 



simply by the sense of touch, as he does not appear 

 to be able to see. At length an unhappy insect 



comes within his reach. 

 Brandishing a trident with 

 which he is armed, he im- 

 mediately transfixes the 

 insect, just as we take up 

 a morsel of food upon a 

 fork!" The little creature 

 is then sucked into a sort 

 of cavity like the neck of 

 a bottle, where it is re- 

 tained by a couple of 

 pins until its juices are 

 Lion of the Aphides. emptied by the destroyer, 



when he casts it away, now nothing more of it 

 being left but a dry, shrivelled, empty skin. The 

 aphis-lion, however, loses no time, and presently 

 seizes another, which he pierces and sucks dry as 

 quickly as the last.* When very hungry he will 

 devour one a minute. Reaumur says, "I have 

 seen him eat twenty of these insects one after 



* One of these insects which fell under the writer's notice 

 pierced and sucked dry aphides of several different species quite 

 indifferently. 



