JUNE. 115 



The animal life of the sandhills is not very abundant, 

 a fact which to many idlers may be a great recommenda- 

 tion. Yet wherever plants are to be found there animals 

 especially insects of various kinds are found, to eat 

 them, and still others to prey upon the vegetable feeders. 

 Burying beetles, carnivorous beetles, ants, and spiders, 

 all belong to the last section, and quite a respectable 

 collection of these can be made in any hollow where the 

 blown sand is more or less grown over with plant life. 

 While the plant - eaters are mostly brownish, grey, or 

 dirty green, to enable them to lie hidden either among 

 the foliage or in the vegetable debris of the sand, their 

 enemies are not so protectively coloured, and trust as a 

 rule to their superior agility or strength in the struggle foi 

 existence. 



When we leave the sandhills and walk down on the 

 beach we find that the border line between sea and land, 

 where the highest tides and heaviest gales have thrown 

 up the seaweed to a great height, is inhabited by colonies 

 of scavengers whose work is to eat up, and so clear away, 

 the debris which collects on this neutral territory. Under 

 the decaying weed usually misnamed kelp are to be 

 found numerous flies, staphylinid beetles (with their 

 wing covers so short as to protect only about one-third 

 of their body, and therefore useless to them for flight), 

 large earwigs, sometimes small ants, and almost always 

 sand-hoppers. In the case of the flies and beetles, we 

 see one of those adaptive devices which meet one at every 

 turn when studying the organic creation. Neither of these 

 insects can fly at least, to any extent. Had they con- 

 siderable wing -power their chances of being blown out 

 to sea during off-shore winds would be great, whereas, with 

 enfeebled powers of flight they are saved this fatal risk. 

 While the former are all insects, the sand-hoppers are 

 Crustacea, specially modified for living out of the water 

 and for burrowing in the sand. Their bodies are sheathed 

 in flexible coats-of-mail, their fore-limbs are fairly strong, 

 so that they can rake the sand together with their feet, 

 while with the powerful tail-end of their body they can 



