oo ANIMAL LIFE 



able to secure the prey by their aid, and then holds it 

 in the basket formed by its feet. Again, the Emperor 

 butterfly and hawk-moth are severally at the head of 

 these two groups, and are fine examples of insects 

 adapted for sucking flowers ; and to satisfy its thirst 

 the Emperor descends from the tree-top for a puddle 

 or some dead creature. Lhe mantis is the most 

 elaborate of the class to which it belongs, and though 

 maintaining a still attitude, waits but for a fly to alight 

 near to display the ferocity and blood-sucking in- 

 stinct that animates it. Even the grasshoppers, 

 that haunt sandhills and match the colour of their 

 surroundings so closely, feed upon the flies that perch 

 unsuspectingly near them. The true flies specialise 

 in sucking, and for the delicate probe that can pierce 

 a tough land plant the hide of a beast is no impene- 

 trable armour. Drawn by the sense of smell from 

 plants to fungi, from fungi to dead animals, and thence 

 to living ones, various families of flies have discovered 

 the stimulant of blood. The mother-fly in particular, 

 having but a summer to work in, discovers the greater 

 fertility which such a diet ensures and the greater 

 number of broods which may be reared when warm- 

 blooded animals are drawn upon for nourishment. 

 Ants, bees, and wasps, the highest members of that 

 vast class, the Hymenoptera, employ the most varied 

 methods for obtaining nutritive fluids. Plant or 

 animal juices in a concentrated form are then- 

 favourite nourishment. Ants milk their cows — the 

 aphides — from whose bodies flows the nectar or honey- 



