QUEER LITTLE FOLKS. 123 



3. Dinner comes by and by in the shape of some little 

 ant, roaming round for its own dinner, and attracted by 

 this queer little pit. Almost all animals have some curi- 

 osity, and so the ant looks over the edge. His foot slip in 

 the soft sand, the more he struggles the faster he slips down, 

 and the ant-lion, wriggling up half-way to meet him, soon 

 has him in his strong jaws, that never let go. In the strug- 

 gle the sand is thrown about, and the pitfall is often so de- 

 stroyed that it is easier to make a new one than to repair 

 the old. 



4. 1 have seen a hundred of these tiny burrows beside 

 each other in the woods, and have often put into them little 

 pieces of stick or straw, that I might see how easily these 

 obstructions slid down, and how eagerly the little ant-lion 

 seized upon them. It seemed a selfish and lonely way of 

 getting one's food, besides the treacherousness of it. For I 

 never saw two ant-lions in the same dining-room, and you 

 can not have as much sympathy for them as for those who 

 are collecting food to keep their families from starving. At 

 any rate, it shows that if ants have sharp wits, they are 

 needed to resist such very intelligent enemies. 



T. W. Higginson. 



HOW MOSQUITOES MANAGE. 



1. The following account of the mosquito is condensed 

 from Keaumur, the distinguished French naturalist, and is 

 mostly in his own language : 



2. The mosquito is our declared enemy, and a very 



troublesome enemy it is. However, it is well to make its 



acquaintance ; for, if we pay a little attention, we shall be 



forced to admire it, and even to admire the instrument 



with which it wounds us. Besides which, throughout the 



whole course of its life, it offers most interesting matter of 

 10 



