310 DIVISION II. ARTICULATED ANIMALS.—CLASS IV. INSECTA. 
beneath the pebbles, or in galleries which they hollow out in the beds of 
rivers and ponds. They feed on insects. When about to undergo their last 
metamorphosis, they come out of the water and attach themselves to plants. 
The transformation is accomplished in a few hours, when they flutter in un- 
numbered millions in the sunbeams, apparently in the possession of a joyous 
though bricf existence; for they hatch their eggs at sunset, and, having 
fulfilled the purpose of their being, at sunrise have ceased to live. 
Panorpa. — The Panorpas form a curious little group, having a peculiarly 
shaped head, which is prolonged to a kind of long, slender beak. They 
live on hedges and plants during the summer. Their bodies are slender, 
marked with yellow and black spots; and their wings, which are four, are 
also spotted with black. The abdomen of the male is terminated by a long, 
jointed, recurved tail, with a claw at the tip. 
MyrMetron. —The insects of this genus have the antenne gradually 
thickened, curved at the tips, and much shorter than the body, and the body 
is long and linear. The destruction which the larve of several species 
make among the ants has given the insect the name of Ant Lion. 
The larve of the Ant Lions live on the land, and are carnivorous. When 
about to undergo their transformation into pup, they spin for themselves a 
silky cocoon. The pupie, as well as the larve, of these insects breathe by 
means of gills. : 
The Ant Lion is an elegant insect, resembling the dragon-fly, but is dis- 
tineuished from it by its antenna. Its larva is of a rosy, rather dirty gray, 
with little tufts of blackish hair on its very voluminous abdomen. Its legs 
are rather long and slender ; the two anterior pairs of legs are directed for- 
wards, whilst the hind legs are fixed against the body, and only permit the 
animal to walk backwards. These larve are met with in great abundance 
in sandy places very much exposed to the heat of the sun. There they con- 
struct for themselves a sort of funnel in the sand by describing backwards 
the turns of a spiral, whose diameter gradually diminishes. Their strong, 
square head serves them as a spade with which to throw the sand far away. 
They then hide themselves at the bottom of the hole, their head alone being 
out, and wait with patience for some insect to come near. Scarcely has the 
Ant Lion perceived its victim on the borders of its funnel, when it throws 
at it a shower of dust to alarm it, and make it fall to the bottom of the 
precipice, which does not fail to happen. 
Then it seizes it with its sharp mandibles, and sucks its blood; after which 
it throws its empty skin out of the hole, and resumes the lookout. Ants 
especially become its prey, whence its name of Ant Lion. ‘Towards the 
month of July, the larvae make themselves a spherical cocoon, mixed with 
grains of sand, in which they are transformed into pupx, which are hatched 
