The Ant-Lion. 229 



of various dimensions, from one to nearly three inches in 

 diameter, according to circumstances. 



In the 'Magazine of Natural History,' 1838, p. 601, Mr. 

 West wood gives a very interesting account of the mode in 

 which the ant-lion proceeds in the excavation of its pitfall, as 

 witnessed by himself in specimens procured in the Pare de 

 Belle Vue, near Paris, where, at the foot of a very high 

 sand-bank, these pits were numerous, and of various sizes, 

 but none exceeded an inch and a half or two inches in 

 diameter, and two-thirds of an inch deep. " The ant-lions 

 were of various sizes, corresponding to the size of their 

 retreats. I brought many of them to Paris, placing several 

 together in a box filled with sand. They, however, destroyed 

 one another whilst shut up in these boxes ; and I only 

 succeeded in bringing three of them alive to England, one 

 of which almost immediately afterwards (on the 23rd of July) 

 enclosed itself in a globular cocoon of fine sand. The other 

 two afforded me many opportunities of observing their pro- 

 ceedings. They were unable to walk forwards, an anoma- 

 lous circumstance, and not often met with in animals 

 furnished with well-developed legs. It is generally back- 

 wards, working in a spiral direction, that the creature moves, 

 pushing itself backwards and downwards at the same time, 

 the head being carried horizontally, and the back much 

 arched, so that the extremity of the body is forced into the 

 sand. In this manner it proceeds backwards (to use an 

 Hibernianisin), forming little mole-hills in the sand. But it 

 does not appear to me that this retrograde motion has any- 

 thing to do with the actual formation of the cell, since, as 

 soon as it has fixed upon a spot for its retreat, it commences 

 throwing up the sand with the back of its head, jerking the 

 sand either behind its back or on one or the other side. It 

 shuts its long jaws, forming them into a kind of shovel, the 

 sharp edges of which it thrusts laterally into the sand on 

 each side of its head, and thereby contrives to lodge a 

 quantity of the sand upon the head as well as the jaws. The 

 motion is in fact something like that of the head of a goat, 

 especially when butting sideways in play. In this manner 



