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," ^d 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 



