52 ANT-LION. 



get hold of him, he fights, and bites, and struggles, to the 



last. told me of another larva, which he said he 



had met with near Marseilles, called the ' Fourmilion,' or 

 'ant-lion; 7 whose operations, if you will have them as an 

 episode, may he thus set forth. 



A loose light sand is the favourite soil of the ANT-LION. 

 In this he makes his snare, and passes the first part of his 

 life. His snare is a round hole, about two inches wide at 

 top, and with sloping sides, gradually lessening to a point 

 at the bottom, where the tenant lays in wait, his jaws only 

 being visible, and the rest of his body hidden beneath the 

 sand. The sides of this trap are made of the finest and 

 driest sand, which, when an insect of any kind alights on, 

 gives way beneath its feet, and so conducts it, in the most 

 perfectly natural manner, into the very jaws of its de- 

 vourer. It sometimes happens, that a shower has made 

 the sand more solid, and better footing than when quite 

 loose ; and then the luckless mortal, who has inadvertently 

 dropped or flown into the hole, begins to remount the side 

 with ease and fancied safety ; but, alas, the safety is only 

 fancied ! Mark the deepness of the rogue in hiding : he 

 dips his jaws into the sand, and, being a capital marksman, 

 jerks it, with certain aim, on the back of the intruder, not 

 once only, but again, and again, and again ; and thus 

 keeps up such a constant and well-directed fire, that the 

 poor creature is at last tired out, and slides into the power 

 of its enemy. The ant-lion is about the size of a large 

 garden spider, and something like it in shape ; after it has 

 fed for five weeks on all the stragglers that were unfortu- 

 nate enough to get in its way, it spins itself a white silky 

 covering, and changes to a chrysalis, and afterwards to a 

 beautiful lace-winged fly, which emerges from the sand like 

 a spirit escaping from the tomb. 



