170 A TOUR ROUND MY GARDEN. 



large and flattened, and terminated by two horns, which have 

 in some degree the form of those of the great stag-beetle.* 



The prey which supplies its food is nimble ; it consists of 

 flies, ants, woodlice, and spiders, and as it is only able to take 

 a few steps at a time, and that backwards, it does not think 

 of running down its game, but employs stratagem. There it 

 is, working a spiral pit which begins at the surface, and is 

 to attain a depth of several lines : at each step which it 

 makes backward it stops, and with one of its feet loads its 

 flattened head : the head being loaded like a shovel, it gives 

 it a shake, and throws out of the hole the few grains of earth 

 it carried. This is a long and fatiguing operation ; never- 

 theless, a quarter of an hour suffices for the performance of 

 it. There is the trap completed ; the sportsman places himself 

 at the bottom, burying himself in the sand, leaving out only 

 his eyes, which are twelve in number, and two horns, which 

 he stretches as far from each other as possible. 



Think how ancient travellers have been obliged to lie, in 

 order to make people believe they had seen Cyclops, that is 

 to say, people who have but one eye ; what a distance they 

 were obliged to go to, to venture to say that they had seen 

 men who ordinarily were called one-eyed in the country in 

 which; they lived. Well, for my part, without going from 

 home, I have fallen in with a hunter with twelve eyes ! 



The ant-lion does not stir, — ^it might be believed to be 

 dead or asleep; its horns do not betray the least motion. 

 Ah ! there is some game ! An ant, going rather too close to 

 the hole, made a grain of sand slip in, and fell with it into 

 the trap to the depth of half a line. It climbs up again, but 

 the precipice is steep, and the grains of sand give way beneath 

 its feet; it loses ground, — it is at least six grains of sand 

 lower than it was. One effort, however, has recovered it ; it 

 gets up again. Then the ant-lion, charging its head with 

 sand, launches with violence a shower of dust at the ant, 

 which makes it lose its equilibrium, and slip down; but it 

 clings to the side, and endeavours to reascend. A second 

 shower of sand falls upon it, and makes it lose the little 

 ground it had regained. Then the hunter precipitates its 

 blows, and soon the unfortunate ant, brought down at last by 



* See right-hand figure of the cut on p. 168. 



