8 
PLANTS AND INSECTS 
his home on an ant-hill he deals out death to the luckless ants that 
happen to pass his way. 
The ant-hills in Australia are sometimes very large. The writer 
has seen them five feet high and fully ten feet in diameter at the base, 
but generally they are smaller. 
While watching the busy inhabitants of an ant-hill at work, we 
noticed one apparently fastened to the ground and struggling to free 
itself. An attempt to move the struggling ant revealed the fact that 
one of its legs was drawn down a tiny hole and that something was 
hanging very tenaciously to it. The captured ant soon became ex¬ 
hausted and died. It was then left on the ground near the hole with 
others that had perished in the same way. 
There were a considerable number of these little holes in different 
parts of the ant-hill, and round the top of each was a little white ring. 
Watching to see what would happen next, we noticed that whenever 
an ant in moving about over the hill happened to run over one of these 
holes, up would pop a minute pair of nippers at lightning speed, striv¬ 
ing to gain a hold on the ant, and usually succeeding in closing round 
a leg in vise like grip and dragging it down until the body prevented 
its going any farther. In about five minutes from the time it was 
caught, the ant was dead, its life-blood apparently having been sucked 
out of it. Sometimes another ant will come along to help his mate 
that is in trouble; hut it is of no avail, for just as sure as; those nippers 
close around the leg of the ant, just so sure it is that he will not get 
away alive. 
A peculiar fact about this little grub is that so long as he remains 
in his hole he is safe, hut just as soon as the earth is removed and he 
is exposed, he is perfectly helpless. The ants seem to realize this; for 
they will tackle him at once, and it sometimes happens that two ants 
in struggling for him will tear him in pieces. 
Another interesting little insect that plays its part in this direction 
is a species of ground-spider. The length of its body is only one-third 
of an inch. It hollows out in the fine, soft earth a conical-shaped hole, 
about one inch in diameter at the top, and tapering down a depth of 
about an inch or a little more. The side walls, therefore, are very steep. 
At the bottom of this hole the spider settles, and buries himself just 
sufficiently to be hidden from view. There he waits. 
Presently a tiny black ant comes along, and, not being aware of the 
