276 ] The Wonderful Ways of Insects and Spiders 



the United States and southern Canada. As in the case of the gall 

 insects, the adult forms are undistinguished; it is the larvae, 

 often called doodlebugs, that attract our attention. 



The Doodlebug's Ambush Technique: The doodlebug, plump- 

 bodied and hairy, is less than an inch long. Its head is small in 

 proportion to its body but its jaws are enormous in relation to 

 the size of its head! It digs a pit in sandy or powdery soil by 

 shoveling the earth on its head and then with a sharp jerk, throw- 

 ing it a considerable distance. As it digs, it walks around and 

 around, always backwards, in ever-widening circles. 



Finally a tiny crater is formed, an inch and a half across or 

 smaller, with the doodlebug buried at the bottom. With only 

 its head and powerful jaws exposed, it waits for an ant or some 

 other insect to slip over the edge and slide down. Then it seizes 

 the victim, makes it helpless by injecting a paralyzing secretion 

 into it, sucks the juice from its body, and flips the lifeless remains 

 out of the pit by an upward jerk of its long jaws. 



How to Find Doodlebugs: You may be interested in observing 

 this extraordinary example of how a "lowly" creature can capture 

 its prey by an ingenious trapping technique. You can catch a 

 doodlebug by finding its crater and scooping your hand under to 

 bring the insect-excavator to the surface. Place it in a box of 

 sandy soil and you will quickly see it set to work. If you wish 

 to see the final act of the drama, you must place ants or other 

 insects in the box so the doodlebug will not vainly lie in wait. 



THE STRANGE PRAYING MANTIDS 



I know of one little girl to whom the praying mantis will 

 always seem curious if only because of the way she first became 

 acquainted with this insect. On an August evening a mantis 

 alighted on a window sill of her New York apartment! It would 

 be hard to imagine a more unlikely intruder in such a place than 

 this queer green creature with its pointed, elfin face and big 

 round eyes. 



The little girl managed to get it into a box and took it to the 

 American Museum of Natural History in New York in the belief 



