52 nature's teachings. 



havoc among his peas just as they were starting out of the 

 ground, he buried between the rows a number of earthen 

 pickle-jars, sinking them to the level of the ground. He then 

 rubbed the inside of the neck with bacon, and left them. The 

 mice stooped down to lick off the bacon, fell into the jars, and, 

 the neck being narrow and the sides slippery, they could not 

 get out again. 



On the left hand of the illustration is the section of a pitfall 

 made by the well-known Ant-lion (Myrmeleo), of which 

 there are several species. The history of this wonderful insect 

 is so familiar to us that it need not be repeated at length. 

 Suffice it to say that it digs conical pitfalls in loose sandy soil, 

 and that it places itself at the bottom of the pit, securing the 

 insect victims with its jaws just as the larger animals are 

 secured by the stake of the human hunter. 



It makes no false cover, as does the human hunter, but it 

 always chooses soil so loose that if an insect approach the edge, 

 the sand gives way, and it goes sliding down into the pit, 

 whence its chance of escape is very small, even were there no 

 deadly jaws at the bottom ready to receive it. 



The Club. 



The simplest of all offensive weapons is necessarily the 

 Club. At first, this was but a simple stick, such as any 

 savage might form from a branch of a tree by knocking off 

 the small boughs with a stone or another stick. Such clubs 

 are still used in Australia, and I have several in my collection. 



Then the inventive genius of man improved their destructive 

 power by various means. The most obvious plan was to add 

 to the force of its blow by simply making one end much thicker 

 and heavier than the other. This is done in the "Knob- 

 kerry " of Southern Africa, and it is worthy of remark that in 

 Fiji a weapon exists so exactly like the short knob-kerry of 

 Africa, that an inexperienced eye would scarcely be able to 

 distinguish between them. 



The next plan was to arm the enlarged head with pro- 

 jecting pieces or spikes, sometimes cut out of the solid wood, 

 and sometimes artificially inserted. The " Shillelagh " of 

 Ireland is a simple example of this kind of club. One of the 



