CARNIVOROUS INSECTS in 



them). The strong mandibles are provided with sharp teeth, 

 and are well adapted for cutting pieces off the young feathers 

 and other epidermal products on which these creatures subsist. 

 They are quite distinct from true blood-sucking lice, which have 

 piercing mouth-parts and belong to the crder Hemiptera (Bugs, 

 &c.). Some five different species infest fowls, the commonest 

 being the Pale Poultry- Louse (Menopon pallidum). Everyone 

 must have noticed poultry taking " dust baths ', the object of 

 which is to get rid of some of these parasites. 



The Snake- Flies (see vol. i, p. 375), remarkable for the 

 possession of a long neck, feed upon various small insects, and 

 their heads are freely movable so as to enable them the more 

 readily to seize their prey. The elongated larva is extremely 

 active and possessed of an unbounded appetite. It lives in rotten 

 wood, relentlessly hunting down other insects which have the same 

 habitat. 



Scorpion- Flies (see vol. i, p. 375) constitute a small group 

 in which both the adults and the spiny terrestrial larvae are 

 carnivorous. The elongated head is provided with strong, toothed 

 mandibles. One of the European species [Bittacus tipularius) 

 is particularly interesting, for it resembles a " daddy-long-legs ", 

 which no doubt allays the suspicions of the small flies upon which 

 it feeds. Should one of these approach too near, it is liable to 

 be captured by the hooked hind-legs of the apparently harmless 

 insect, which meanwhile holds on to a plant by means of its two 

 other pairs of elongated limbs. 



Ant- Lions. — One of the most notable insects in the whole 

 order of Neuroptera is the Ant- Lion {Myrmeleo formicarius) 

 (fig. 387), a common European form which has been the subject 

 of observation for some two centuries. The chief interest attached 

 to this creature centres in the backwardly-walking larva, to which 

 stage the name "ant-lion" is properly applied. Its appearance is 

 characteristic, and not calculated to inspire confidence in weaker 

 insects, but this does not matter, as it is a case where the battle 

 is 'to the "slim" rather than the swift. The powerful head is 

 provided with enormously-developed curved mandibles, the stout 

 thorax bears powerful legs, and the elongated abdomen is of 

 oval shape. The ingenious method of hunting adopted in this 

 case consists in the digging of a pitfall by the larva, which then 

 lurks at the bottom of it. The insect navvy does not begin 



