DOOR-STEP NEIGHBORS 67 



the evolutionary stand-point, or at least from the 

 stand-point of comparative anatomy. 



The first discovery that we make is that as we 

 now see him he is crawling on his back a fact 

 which seems to have escaped his biographers 

 heretofore. It is, in truth, the underside of his 

 head which is uppermost at the mouth of the bur- 

 row, and his six zigzag legs are distorted back- 

 ward to enable him to keep this contrary position. 

 And what a hideous monster is this, whose flat, 

 metallic, dirt - begrimed face stares skyward from 

 this circular burrow ! Well might it strike terror 

 to the heart of the helpless insect which should 

 suddenly find himself confronted by the motion- 

 less stare of these four cruel, glistening black 

 eyes ! But he is now a " fish out of water," and is 

 about as helpless, nature never having intended 

 him to be seen outside of his burrow at least, in 

 this present form. There he dwells, setting his 

 circular trap at the mouth of his pitfall, and wait- 

 ing for the voluntary sacrifice of his insect neigh- 

 bors to fill his maw. 



But this uncouth shape, which so courts ob- 

 scurity, is not always thus so reasonably retiring. 

 A few glass tumblers inverted above as many of 

 these larger holes during the summer will inter- 

 cept the winged sprite into which he is shortly to 



