Ant-Lion

a predatory insect with four gauzy wings, somewhat resembling the dragon fly. The common name arises from the manner in which the young secure food. The larva of an ant-lion is about half an inch long and has a pair of strong curved jaws. It crawls to a dry, sandy spot where insects are likely to run, and flings the sand with its head until it has a circular pit from one to three inches across, with sloping sides of sliding sand. It then buries itself to the eyes in the center of the pit and waits for some hurrying ant to come sliding down the funnel. The ant-lion now bestirs itself and aids the ant in its descent by flinging sand at it, or by stirring the sand below. In this way an apparently helpless "worm" outwits one of the most nimble and intelligent insects. Chambers speaks of a European species that makes a pit thirty inches in diameter. Entomologists report over fifty species from the semi-arid regions of the southwestern United States.