HISTORY OF INSECTS. 73 



230. Its sole food is the juices of other insects, 

 particularly ants ; at first view it seems scarcely 

 possible that it should ever procure a single meal : 

 not only is its pace slow, but it can walk in no 

 other direction than backwards ; its grim aspect, 

 combined with this awkwardness in progression, 

 appear to offer insuperable obstacles to the cap- 

 ture of its prey. 



231. Its first step is to trace in the sand a 

 circle, the destined boundary of its future abode : 

 this being done, it proceeds to excavate the cavity 

 by throwing out the sand by a process not less 

 singular than effective. 



232. Placing itself in the inside of the circle 

 which it has traced, it thrusts the hind part of its 

 body into the sand, and with one of its fore legs, 

 serving as a shovel, it charges its flat and square 

 head with a load, which it immediately throws 

 over the outside of the circle, with a jerk suffi- 

 ciently strong to carry it many inches. 



233. Walking backwards, and constantly re- 

 peating the process, it soon arrives at the part of 

 the circle from which it set out : it then traces a 

 new circle within the first, and excavates a second 

 furrow ; then a third within this, and so on until, 

 by a repetition of these operations, it arrives at 

 the centre. 



234. It never loads its head with the sand 

 lying on the outside of the circle, though it 

 would be as easy to do this with the outward leg, 



