196 INSECTA. 
distance. In this manner, and sometimes in the space of half an 
hour, it will remove a reversed cone of sand the base of which is 
equal in diameter to that of the area, and the height to about 
three-fourths of the same. Hidden and quiescent at the bottom 
of its retreat, with nothing visible but its mandibles, it awaits 
with patience till an Insect is precipitated into it; if it endeavour 
to escape, or be at too great a distance for it to seize, it showers 
upon it such a torrent of sand by means of its head and mandi- 
bles, as propels it, stunned and defenceless, to the bottom of the 
hole. Having exhausted its juices by sucticn, it drags away the 
carcass and leaves it at a distance from its domicil. 
The nutritive matter it thus obtains is not converted into any 
perceptible excrement, neither is this larva—and such also is the 
case with several others—provided with an opening analogous to 
an anus. It can abstain from food for a long period without 
any apparent suffering. 
When about to pass into the state of the chrysalis, it encloses 
itself in a perfectly round cocoon, formed of a silky substance, 
which it covers externally with grains of sand. Its fusi are 
situated at the posterior extremity of the body. The perfect 
Insect makes its appearance at the expiration of fifteen or twenty 
days, and leaves its exuvium at the aperture it has effected in 
its cocoon. : 
AscaLapuus, Fab. 
Where the antenne are long and terminate abruptly in a button ; 
the abdomen forms an oblong oval, and is hardly longer than the tho- 
rax. 
The wings are proportionally widerthan those of the Myrmeleones, 
and not so long. 
Bonnet has observed, in the environs of Geneva, a larva simi- 
lar to that of the preceding subgenus, but which neither moves 
backwards nor excavates a funnel. The posterior extremity of 
its abdomen is furnished with abifid plate truncated at the end *. 
It is perhaps the larva of the Ascalaphus ttalicus, peculiar to the 
south of Europe, and which now begins to appear in the neigh- 
bourhood of Paris and Fontainebleau f. 
3. The Hemerosit of Latreille, which are similar to the Myrme- 
leonides in the general form of their body and wings; but their an- 
tennz are filiform, and they have but four palpi. 
They form the genus 
Hemerosius, Lin. Fab. 
In some, the first segment of the trunk is very small, and the wings 
i 
* This larva has also been found in Dalmatia, by Count Dejean. 
+ The same works. For some species of New Holland, see Leach, Zool. Mis- 
cellany. 
