Under these repeated visitations, they consulted with the old sage who had been the first to counsel active operations against their new enemy. "What now," said they, best measures to be adopted for our safety ?"

66 are the

"Ah, my children!" said he; "safety there is now none. Remember the time you wasted in panic fear and indecision, before you attempted to attack these monsters in their pitfalls, or meet them upon level ground. The ogres and our winged destroyers are the same evil genii under different forms. The first were shapes of immaturity: their bodies were unwieldy, their movements slow and awkward; with the cunning of age, they had the weakness of infancy, and by dint of activity and courage you might have overcome them. But now, you have allowed them to reach their matured and powerful forms, also to multiply their race, which has become too numerous for entire extirpation, and which, in one shape or another, will continue to assail you. My best and only advice, now, is to resume your usual activities; hold your new enemies, as well as those which have always beset you, in prudent, but not in paralyzing dread; attack them when you can, before they have acquired wings to soar beyond your reach; and do this, looking always for help to that benevolent Power who is the only Good Genius of our diminutive race, as well as of the gigantic nations amongst whom we dwell.”

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PANTOMIME OF NATURE.

A pantomime, with its machinery exposed, would be a sorry spectacle, stripped at once of its amusing and surprising character; but there are certain pantomimic incidents, of which the theatre is the insect world, and in which the part of harlequin is played by Nature, that cannot be thus marred, for the more they are elucidated the more do they raise our admiration, with always room left (be they explained never so wisely) for curiosity and wonder. Of this description are the marvels which compose the history of the "Formica Leo," "Ant Lion," or Ogre of Ants, on which our "Tale of an Ogre" has its foundation, and to which we must now turn for explanation and completion of what, in that, was left imperfect and obscure.

Under their prominent characteristics, as a trio eminently "Fair and Fierce," we have said something in another place of the "Dragon," the " Scorpion," and the "Lace-wing" flies; and to these we might have added a fourth, in the allied tribe of Ant Lions, which, " fierce," more cunning, and, finally, as "fair" as they, belong also to the same order of Neuroptera. The Ant Lion is not indeed a frequenter, now-a-days, of Britain; not exactly, therefore, a subject for our exhibition; but it has a place in British catalogues, and having, as it would thence appear, been found once, it may still have lurking-places in our island. This conjecture is considered the more probable from its being a native of central France and Switzerland as well as more southern

Europe. At all events, it is sufficiently rare in this country to constitute a "Lion" indeed among English insects, and, as such, better worth the seeking. The wily and cruel grub of the ant-lion* (the Ogre of the pitfall) is a grey-coloured ring-bodied insect, in form not very dissimilar to a woodlouse, only much larger, and with six, instead of many legs; but its most conspicuous distinction consists in a pair of tremendous jaws, each pointed and curved like a sickle, and forming together a forceps-like weapon, wherewith, being tubular, it can at once seize, pierce, and suck the blood, or, more properly, the acid juice of the ants it preys on. The snare or pitfall of the ant-lion consists of a funnel-shaped excavation, scooped out of sand, in size varied, but most often of about three inches diameter by two deep. In the bottom of this den the cunning creature awaits its prey; and, not content with the screen afforded by its encircling walls of sand, is accustomed to conceal its whole body within a deep bed of the same material, leaving only its formidable jaws above the surface. When an unfortunate ant happens, by treading too near this terrible trap, to dislodge from its edge a few particles of sand, these in rolling to the bottom apprise the lurker of its victim's proximity. Then, forthwith, more active measures are adopted to ensure the latter's downfall, its concealed enemy beginning to toss up by repeated jerkings of its head successive showers of sand, whereby the busy little traveller is sure, almost, to be *See Vignette.

precipitated into the pit and jaws of its wily destroyer. When its juices are all extracted, the carcase of the victimized insect is thrown out of the murderer's den.

Great ingenuity, industry, and perseverance are exemplified by the ant-lion in construction of his curious pitfall, a work which, as performed either at large or in boxes of sand, several continental naturalists have observed and described. We learn, in detail, from their pages, how that, having chosen (when at liberty for choice) a proper soil-light and sandy— the grub marks out a circle for the mouth of its funnel pit; how it then proceeds, having placed itself within this circle, to scoop out the intended hollow, an operation which it effects by jerking out with its broad flat head repeated loads of sand shovelled previously thereon by one leg, that always nearest to the centre of the circle. This, having once described, walking and working backwards, it turns round, and gives relief to the working limb by bringing that opposite into action, thus proceeding till the excavation is complete. Before, however, this desired end is obtained, the patience and perseverance of the trap-maker are often severely taxed in the removal of stones, which, after all the fine sand is got rid of, often remain to impair the uniformity and use of its sliding pitfall. In this task, like Sysiphus, he is often baffled, but he generally accomplishes it at last by balancing the stones one at a time upon his back, and then bearing them backwards up the loose sandy acclivity of his snare.

ANT-LION'S COCOON.

245

Enough of the ant-lion grub, as the pattern in its operations of our ogre's method of attack; but to unravel the mystery of the ogre's magic ball, and of the winged "genius' thence proceeding, we must glance at the Formica Leo in its

transformations.

A popular writer thus describes them :-" When the antlion grub is about to change into a pupa, it constructs a cocoon of sand, which it lines with a beautiful tapestry of silk, the whole being less than half an inch in diameter; the pupa itself, when rolled up, filling only a space of about half this dimension.* When it has remained in the cocoon about three weeks, it breaks through the envelope and emerges to the outside making use of its mandibles to gnaw the cocoon. It then only requires to expand its wings and body to complete its transformation. But this is the process most calculated to excite our admiration; for, though it is not, on its emergence, more than half an inch in length, it almost instantaneously stretches out to an inch and a quarter, while its wings, which did not exceed the sixth of an inch, acquire an immediate expansion of nearly three inches."*

This wondrous process of expansion is exemplified scarcely less remarkably in our lace-wing fly. The construction of pitfall traps, and the pelting of victims into them, is an artifice not entirely confined to the grub of the ant-lion, that of a fly* being said, among others, to adopt them. The practice * See Vignette.