FOOD OF INSECTS. 277 



be its hunger, deigning to taste of a carcass unless it has previously had 

 the enjoyment of killing it; and then extracting only the finer juices. In 

 what possible way can it contrive to supply such a succession of delicacies, 

 when its ordinary habits seem to unfit it for obtaining even the coarsest 

 provision ? You shall hear. It accomplishes by artifice what all its open 

 efforts would have been unequal to. It digs in loose sand a conical pit, 

 in the bottom of which it conceals itself, and there seizes upon the insects 

 which, chancing to stumble over the margin, are precipitated down the 

 sides to the centre. " How wonderful ! " you exclaim : but you will be 

 still more surprised when I have described the whole process by which 

 it excavates its trap, and the ingenious contrivances to which it has 

 recourse. 



Its first concern is to find a soil of loose dry sand, in the neighborhood 

 of which, indeed, its provident mother has previously taken care to place 

 it, and in a sheltered spot near an old wall, or at the foot of a tree. 

 This is necessary on two accounts : the prey most acceptable to it 

 abounds there, and no other soil would suit for the construction of its 

 snare. Its next step is to trace in the sand a circle, which, like the 

 furrow with which Romulus marked out the limits of his new city, is to 

 determine the extent of its future abode. This being done, it proceeds to 

 excavate the cavity by throwing out the sand in a mode not less singular 

 than eftective. Placing itself in the inside of the circle which it has 

 traced, it thrusts the hind part of its body under 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 strong enough to carry it to the distance of several inches. This 

 little manoeuvre is executed with surprising promptitude and address. A 

 gardener does not operate so quickly or well with his spade and his foot, as 

 the ant-lion with its head and leg. Walking backwards, and constantly 

 repeating the process, it soon arrives at the part of the circle from which 

 it set out. It then traces a new one, excavates another furrow in a similar 

 manner, and, by a repetition of these operations, at length arrives at the 

 centre of its cavity. One circumstance deserves remark, — that 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, as to remove the sand 

 within the circle by the inner leg. But it knows that it is the sand in the 

 interior of the circle only that is to be excavated, and it therefore con- 

 stantly uses the leg next the centre. It will readily occur, however, that 

 to use one leg as a shovel exclusively throughout the whole of such a 

 toilsome operation, would be extremely wearisome and painful. For this 

 difficulty our ingenious pioneer has a resource. After finishing the exca- 

 vation of one circular furrow, it traces the next in an opposite direction ; 

 and thus alternately exercises each of its legs without tiring either. 



In the course of its labours it frequently meets with small stones : these 

 it places upon its head one by one, and jerks over the margin of the pit. 

 But sometimes, when near the bottom, a pebble presents itself of a size 

 so large that this process is impossible, its head not being sufficiently broad 

 and strong to bear so great a weijrht, and the height being too considerable 

 to admit of projecting so large a body to the top. A more impatient 

 laborer would despair, but not so our insect. A new plan is adopted. 

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