214 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



ant-lion below to be on the alert. In order to secure 

 the prey, Reaumur, Bonnet, and others have observed 

 the ingenious insect throw up showers of sand by 

 jerking it from his head in quick succession, till the 

 luckless ant is precipitated within reach of the jaws 

 of its concealed enemy. It feeds only on the blood 

 or juice of insects; and as soon as it has extracted 

 these, it tosses the dry carcass out of its den. Its 

 next care is to mount the sides of the pitfall and re- 

 pair any damage it may have suffered ; and when this 

 is accomplished, it again buries itself among the sand 

 at the bottom, leaving nothing but its jaws above the 

 surface, ready to seize the next victim. 



When it is about to change into a pupa, it pro- 

 ceeds in nearly the same manner as the caterpillar of 

 the water-betony moth (Cucullia scrophulariee). It 

 first builds a case of sand, the particles of which are 

 secured by threads of silk, and then tapestries the 

 whole with a silken web. Within this it undergoes 

 its transformation into a pupa, and in due time, it 

 emerges in form of a four-winged fly, closely resem- 

 bling the dragon-flies (Libellulce), vulgarly and erro- 

 neously called horse-stingers. 



The instance of the ant-lion naturally leads us to 

 consider the design of the Author of Nature in so 

 nicely adjusting, in all animals, the means of de- 

 struction and of escape. As the larger quadrupeds 

 of prey are provided with a most ingenious machinery 

 for preying on the weaker, so are these furnished 

 with the most admirable powers of evading their 

 destroyers. In the economy of insects, we constantly 

 observe, that the means of defence, not only of the 

 individual creatures, but of their larvae and pupae, 

 against the attacks of other insects, and of birds, is 

 proportioned, in the ingenuity of their arrangements, 

 to the weakness of the insect employing them. Those 

 species which multiply the quickest have the greatest 



