INTELLIGENCE OF LARVAE— ANT-LION. 235 
embryo should stand on a higher level of psychological 
development than the adult. 
I may most fitly begin under this heading with the 
remarkable instincts of the so-called 6 ant-lion, 5 which is 
the larva of a neuropterous insect, the common Myrmeleon 
( M . formicarium ). I quote the following account of its 
habitsfrom Thompson’s 4 Passions of Animals 5 (p. 258):— 
The devices of the ant-lion are still more extraordinary ii 
possible. He forms, with astonishing labour and perseverance, 
a pit in the shape of a funnel, in a dry sandy soil, under some 
old wall or other spot protected from the wind. His pit being 
finished, he buries himself among the sand at the bottom, leaving 
only his horns visible, and thus waits patiently for his prey. 
When an ant or any other small insect happens to walk on the edge 
of the hollow, it forces down some of the particles of sand, 
which gives the ant-lion notice of its presence. He immediately 
throws up the sand which covers his head to overwhelm the 
ant, and with its returning force brings it to the bottom. This 
he continues to do till the insect is overcome and hills between 
his horns. Every endeavour to escape, when once the incau- 
tious ant has stepped within the verge of the pit, is vain, for in 
all its attempts to climb the side the deceptive sand slips from 
under its feet, and every struggle precipitates it still lower. 
When within reach its enemy plunges the points of its jaws 
into its body, and having sucked out all its juices, throws out 
the empty skin to some distance. 
According to Bingley, if the ant-lion, while excavating 
its pitfall, — 
Comes to a stone of some moderate size, it does not desert the 
work on this account, but goes on, intending to remove that im- 
pediment the last. When the pit is finished, it crawls back- 
ward up the side of the place where the stone is; and, getting 
its tail under it, takes great pains and time to get it on a true 
poise, and then begins to crawl backward with it up the edge 
to the top of the pit, to get it out of the way. It is a common 
thing to see an ant-lion labouring in this manner at a stone 
four times as big as its own body ; and as it can only move 
backwards, and the poise is difficult to keep, especially up a 
slope of such crumbling matter as sand, which moulders away 
from under its feet, and necessarily alters the position of its 
body, the stone very frequently rolls down, when near the verge, 
quite to the bottom. In this case the animal attacks it again 
