Antlion

“ Burying its abdomen in the surface of the earth, the Insect collects on to its head, by means of the front leg, the sand from the side which is nearest to the centre, and then jerks the sand to a distance. By making a second circuit within the first one, and then another, the soil is gradually removed, and a conical pit is formed, at the bottom of which the ant-lion lurks, burying its body but leaving its formidable mandibles widely extended and projecting from the sand. In this position the young ant-lion waits patiently till some wandering Insect trespasses on its domains. ”

“ Availing himself of his power of throwing sand with his head, the ant-lion jerks some in the neighbourhood of the trespasser, and continues to do so until the victim is brought to the bottom of the pit and into the very jaws of its destroyer; then there is no further hope of escape; the mandibles close, empale their prey, and do not relax their hold till the body of the victim is exhausted of its juices. ”

“ Ants especially become its prey, whence its name of Ant-lion. Towards the month of July, the larvæ make themselves a spherical cocoon, mixed with grains of sand, in which they are transformed into pupæ which are hatched towards the end of August. The perfect ant-lions diffuse an odour of roses; their flight, which is weak, distinguishes them from the dragon-flies. We meet in the south of France with a very beautiful species of Ant-lion, the Myrmeleo libelluloides (Fig. 404) ; its larva can move forwards, and does not dig itself a funnel. ”

“ If you lay your hand on the growing antler, you will feel that it is hot with the nutrient blood that is coursing beneath it. It is, too, exceedingly sensitive and tender. An army of tens of thousands of busy living cells is at work beneath that velvet surface, building the bony antlers, preparing for the battles of autumn. ”

“ Peacefully buried in the sand of his lair, the Ant-lion devours his astutely-captured prey. When the meal is over, there remains a dry carcass, which must be thrown away, for, if left in the funnel, it might frighten any game in future and betray the hunter in his ambush. A jerk of the shovel, that is to say, a toss of the flat head, flings it outside the hole. ”

“ Each circle is smaller than the last, until the pit is like an inverted cone, and the ant-lion lies buried at the bottom, only his forceps being visible. When an ant has fallen headlong down into the pit it makes frantic efforts to escape, and if the ant-lion sees that it is likely to get beyond his reach, he then with his forceps flings some sand at it with such unerring aim the poor victim is sure to roll over and over until it reaches the jaws of its captor, who feasts upon it and then flings the remains of the body out of the pit. ”

“ Strictly speaking, however, the term ant-lion applies to the larval form, which has been known scientifically for over two hundred years, on account of its peculiar and forbidding appearance and its skilful and unique manner of entrapping prey by means of a pitfall. The abdomen is oval, sandy-grey in hue and beset with warts and bristles; the prothorax forms a mobile neck for the large square head, which carries a pair of long and powerful toothed mandibles. It is in dry and sandy soil that the ant-lion lays its trap. ”

“ The new antlers push off the old ones, and when they appear they resemble scars on the animal’s forehead, but soon take the form of two black-velvet buttons about the size of silver dollars. As they continue to grow they gain in length only, and by the first of July they have attained their full size. If you could examine them now, you would find them soft, rather flexible, nourished by blood, and incased in a thick, tough skin covered with velvety fur. The antlers are now
American Elk, or Wapiti, antlers full-grown. ”

“ Then went the Pheasant, and told all the birds what the Ant had done. They gathered together in one place and took counsel what they should do. At last they determined to kill the Ant for that he had killed the hornbill.
The Ant climbed into the top of a tree, and each bird which in turn tried to attack him he slew. Then he made for himself a house by gumming leaves together, and he sat therein, and his heart was glad for that he had conquered his enemies. ”

“ Of course the huntsman employing such a device as this must himself keep well out of sight. The ant-lion is too well versed in its art to violate this elementary principle. It crouches down under the sand at the lowest point of the upturned funnel, with only its nippers showing, and these are pressed close to the ground, but wide open and ready to seize any luckless ant that may chance to tumble down the incline. Although the horrible pincers are exposed, [268] they are not likely to excite suspicion, being easily mistakable from the edge of the excavation for some stray bits of dead leaves. ”

“ The building of the antlers by these little agents continues through the spring and summer. In the autumn the Osteoblasts cease their activity and die; the delicate, sensitive velvet dries and peels off, leaving the dead, hard, bony substance exposed, and they now become weapons adapted for fighting. This is the season when the stags challenge one another to single combat, the hinds standing timidly by to be taken by the victor as his mates. When the loves and battles of the autumn are over and the mating is completed, the antlers no longer serve a useful purpose, and they are shed. ”

“ With head erect, antlers thrown back, his white throat exposed, his tail raised, his whole body gathered together, prepared to bound away into the deep forest in the twinkling of an eye, he stands a splendid specimen of the cervine tribe. We will not kill him; we look and admire! A doe suddenly gives that imperceptible signal to which I have formerly alluded, and the next moment the whole herd has dashed through the bamboo alleys, vanishing from sight—a dappled hide now and again gleaming in the sunlight as its owner scampers away to more distant haunts. ”

“ Any person who visits a zoological garden in midsummer will see that the old antlers have dropped off bodily, just below the burr, and that new antlers, covered with hair, soft, full of blood, and with club-like “points,” have sprung up like mushrooms in place of the old ones. In supplying the great drain on the system necessary to support this remarkable growth, the Elk grows thin, and the fear of hurting his tender young antlers makes him quite timid and inoffensive. He is no longer the tyrant of the herd, and a constant menace to his keepers. ”

“ The mysterious object at the bottom of the funnel suddenly springs up and shows itself—it is the ant-lion in all its hideous proportions; and before the little ant can draw itself away, the other has flung around it a shower of sand that brings it rolling down the side of the pit. ”

“ When bounding along through the forest, his beautifully spotted skin flashing through the dark green foliage, his antlers laid back over his withers, he looks the very embodiment of grace and swiftness. He is very timid, and not easily stalked. ”

“ As a rule, the “beam” or main stem of the antler and its [412] branches or “tines” are cylindrical and tapering; but in some cases, as in the Moose (Alce) and the Fallow Deer (Dama) , the antler is very broad and flat and is then said to be “palmated.” Except in the Reindeer and Caribou (Rangifer) the female is without antlers.
In the skeleton there is little difference between the deer and the Cavicornia, but there are some differences in the teeth. ”

“ Where there are no chairs or stools, one sits and lies upon the earth, and sees much of the kingdoms and communities of the insect world. Here is the ant-lion lurking at the bottom of his inverted cone of a hole, ambushed and ready to spring upon the incautious insect that, stepping on the edge of his trap, is carried to the bottom by the loose, unstable grains of sand ”

“ Ants in great quantities and of many varieties of size and colour, from the lion ant, an inch long, to the small brown ant, which can insinuate itself into the most minute crevice. These seize upon whatever is eatable, and devour it in a short time. The ground seems alive with white ants, and the trees swarm with them inside and out; every thing here teems with life. ”

“ I have killed quite a number of elk since that time in the mountains of Oregon, but I have never seen one larger than one of those, although I have seen much larger and finer antlers than adorned the heads of any of them. The purpose of the antlers, in my judgment, is not to furnish the animal a weapon in fight, but as a protection to his shoulders as he dashes through the brush in flight from an enemy or in pursuit of his mate. When he moves swiftly he elevates his nose until his face is nearly in a line with his back ”

“ It is, of course, easy for anyone to classify the flat antler as belonging to one species and the round to another; but the value of the determination depends upon the number of species living at the same time in the same place, possessed respectively of round and flattened antlers. In the pleistocene and prehistoric ages, there were four animals which had portions of their antlers flattened—the Reindeer, Irish Elk, true Elk, and Stag—to which, according to Dr. Jeitteles, must be added the Fallow Deer. ”

“ The legs and feet are wholly white; the ears are slightly tinged with gray, the hair beneath the surface being plumbeous and showing slightly at the surface. The antlers are just budding, being represented by small protuberances, about an inch and a half in length, covered with short hair. ”

“ Both Doña Isidora and the little Leona remained watching with increased interest. They were very anxious to witness the result. They were not kept long in suspense. I have already stated that many ants were crawling about. There were dozens of them “quatering” the ground in every direction in search of their own prey; and they left not an inch of it unsearched. At last one was seen to approach the trap of the ant-lion. Curiosity brings it to the very edge of that terrible pit-fall. ”

“ The eyes are large, clear, and bright, full of gentle eagerness, and furnished on the inner corner with a curious hollow, or gland, called the tear-pit. They have small, pointed ears, and short tails; their legs are slim, and their hoofs are small, the whole animal being built for lightness in running. Even the antlers are not nearly so heavy as they look, for they are porous and full of air-cells. ”

“ As to myself, I can only say what I have seen; that he is about four feet high, has large horns bending forwards, and decorated with several antlers, the ends of which are formed somewhat like a rose; that his flesh is dry like that of ours, and when he is fat tastes like mutton. They feed in herds, and are not in the least of a fierce nature. They are excessively capricious, hardly remain a moment in one place, but are coming and going continually. ”

“ I may most fitly begin under this heading with the remarkable instincts of the so-called 'ant-lion,' which is the larva of a neuropterous insect, the common Myrmeleon (M. formicarium) . I quote the following account of its habits from Thompson's 'Passions of Animals' (p. 258) :—
The devices of the ant-lion are still more extraordinary if possible. ”

“ In a nice dry spot, warmed by the sun and sheltered from the rain by an overhanging rock, the wily animal selects a place where Ants are incessantly moving to and fro on household matters. Gravely, with the mathematical accuracy of an engineer tracing the foundation of a well-planned building, the Ant-lion walks backwards, with his body dug into the sand ”

“ When the antlers are freed from the velvet—a process usually assisted by the animal rubbing them against tree stems or boughs—they have a more or less rugose surface, owing to the grooves formed in them by the nutrient blood-vessels. Although a few living species have the antlers in the form of simple spikes in the adult male, in the great majority of species they are more or less branched; while in some, like the elk and fallow-deer, they expand into broad palmated plates, with tines, or snags, on one or both margins. ”

“ Each minute cell, working for the general good, takes up from the nutrient blood the special materials it requires; elaborates the crude bone-stuff, at first soft as wax, but ere long to become hard as stone; and then, having done its work, having added its special morsel to the fabric of the antler, remains embedded and immured, buried beneath the bone-products of its successors or descendants. No hive of bees is busier or more replete with active life than [16] the antler of a stag as it grows beneath the soft, warm velvet. ”

“ I was rather fancifully describing her wings, dear, which she takes off herself when she enters the nest, having no further use for them. There are three kinds of ants in every nest: perfect males and females, and the workers. There are many different races of ants, from the great white ant of Africa—a terror to the natives, though in some respects his good friend—down to the little red-and-yellow meadow ants so common among us. ”

“ It takes a number of such domes to raise a brood of partridges. For this was an ant's nest. The old one stepped on top, looked about a moment, then gave half a dozen vigorous rakes with her daws, The friable ant-hill was broken open, and the earthen galleries scattered in ruins down the slope. The ants swarmed out and quarreled with each other for lack of a better plan. ”