ENTOMOLOGY. 



The habits and "manners of the Lion-Ants are extremely curious : 

 they feed on other insects, the male only is furnished with wings ; 

 the female is apterous, or wingless. Like the species of the Libel- 

 lula tribe^ the male pursues and captures its prey upon the wing, as 

 the hawk sometimes pounces on the smaller birds in flight, and seizes 

 them before they fall upon the ground. The female lives in the 

 sands and captures her prey by stratagem as well as force ; first 

 forming, with much ingenuity, a spacious hollow or bason-like cavity 

 in the sands, she buries herself at the bottom, where she lies so com- 

 pletely concealed in her Hen, that only her forceps, a formidable pair 

 of jaws, appear protruded above the surface. Thus secured from ob- 

 servation she lies in wait, and seizes wiih the celerity of the spider upon 

 any insect that happens to crawl within the sandy hollow of her lurking 

 place. But, what is yet more singular, should this wary and 

 ferocious creature perceive any insect that had entered its hollow 

 "glen" of sands, attempting to ascend, and thus escape the lurking 

 iHanger, or should any one be incautiously resting upon the verge of 

 the hollow, she immediately throws up a shower of sand upon it, 

 to impede its escape, or hasten its downfal into the pit, and which 

 once accomplished the devoted insect with all its efforts can scarcely 

 avoid failing an easy prey to the ferocity of its foe, so emphatically 

 denominated from its strength and courage the Lion-Ant," 



