PART VI. 

 QUEER, LITTLE FOLKS. 



THE PIT-DIGGER AND ITS VICTIM. 



1. When I lived in a tent in South Carolina, I had all 

 around me the curious little holes of a creature that feeds 

 on ants, though it is no bigger than they are — the ant-lion. 

 I had read about this little insect, as most children have, 

 but I had never before seen it, except in its complete state, 

 when it is a pretty lace-winged fly. But the remarkable 

 part of its life is passed in the grub or larva state. Then it 

 is a soft, heavy little thing, with feeble legs, and nothing 

 strong about it but its appetite and jaws. But how is it to 

 get its living ? It feeds on other insects, but as it can not 

 chase them, it must find a way to bring them to it ; just as 

 if we should sit at table, and the turkeys and chickens 

 should come flying into our mouths. This is the way. 



2. The ant-lion chooses a sandy place, and then crawls 

 round in a circle two or three inches in diameter. Then it 

 makes another round inside of the first a little deeper and 

 jerks the sand outward with its head. Then it makes an 

 inner circle deeper still, and so on, always scooping up the 

 sand and throwing it out, until at last it has made a regular 

 little pitfall, shaped like a cone, and then it lies at the bot- 

 tom with its jaws and forceps just sticking out of the sand, 

 waiting for dinner to come. 



