John has found something he wants us all to see.
We will go with him.
Now we will sit down on this sand bank and look at what he has to show
us. See! those smooth little funnels in the sand.
[Illustration]
Those are what we have come out to see.
Let us watch them a while.
Mollie says an ant is walking close to the rim of the funnel she is
watching. Now the ant slips over the edge and slides down the smooth
sides of the funnel.
And see! from the bottom of the funnel leap out two curved jaws
and--good-by, ant!
The ant has been dragged down out of sight through a hole in the bottom
of the funnel.
What a strange proceeding!
Who can be living down there at the bottom of the funnel?
We are sorry to disturb such a pretty piece of work, but we shall have
to dig out one of the funnels. We shall have to be quick, too.
There, there, under the trowel! No, it is gone. There it is again. Dig
fast, Ned. That is right. He has put it with a trowelful of sand into
our box.
We will gently shake out the sand until we uncover it.
Mabel says it is just what she thought it was--a larva.
Yes, it is a larva.
[Illustration]
You see it looks a little like the lacewing larva, and it, too, belongs
to the Neuroptera.
What jaws!
How do you suppose it makes its tunnel?
If we give it plenty of sand, and keep very quiet, perhaps it will go to
work.
There! it is throwing the sand about.
May says it is using its own head as a trowel. Yes, it is shovelling the
sand away with its head.
Why is Ned laughing? Oh, see the ant lion he is watching! An ant slid
part way down its funnel and tried to climb out again, and the ant lion
down below is flinging sand at it.
There! it has succeeded in making the poor ant slip; down it goes, and
now the ant lion has seized it and dragged it down under the ground.
It is easy to find these pit-falls of the ant lion in sand banks in the
summer-time.
Yes, May, the ant lions eat many ants, and they moult and grow, and,
finally, they, too, make a little cocoon about themselves.
Yes, the little silken room they weave we call a cocoon, but the ant
lions make theirs of silk and sand.
[Illustration]
Within the cocoon they become motionless pupæ, and finally appear as
silver-winged little creatures that bear no resemblance to the
large-jawed, ever hungry, ant lion.
May says she thinks the Neuroptera differ from all the other orders in
the way the larvæ transform.
That is true, May, they do.
In no other order that we have studied do the insects go into the pupal
state to undergo the final transformation.
Who remembers what the young of insects that undergo an incomplete
metamorphosis are sometimes called?
Dear me, you all remember!
Yes, the young are sometimes called nymphs.
The nymphs do not change into pupæ.
The young grasshoppers do not change into motionless pupæ, they just
keep on growing until they are perfect adults.
Young grasshoppers are sometimes called nymphs instead of larvæ.
[Illustration]