. Handbook of nature-study for teachers and parents, based on the Cornell nature-study leaflets. Nature study. THE ANT-LION Teacher's Story CHILD is thrilled with fairy stories of ogres in their dens, with the bones of their victims strewn around. The ants have real ogres, but luckily, they do not know about it and so cannot suffer from agonizing fears. The ant ogres seem to have depended upon the fact that the ant is so ab- sorbed in her work that she carries her booty up hill and down dale with small regard for the topography of the country. Thus they build their pits, with instinctive faith
. Handbook of nature-study for teachers and parents, based on the Cornell nature-study leaflets. Nature study. THE ANT-LION Teacher's Story CHILD is thrilled with fairy stories of ogres in their dens, with the bones of their victims strewn around. The ants have real ogres, but luckily, they do not know about it and so cannot suffer from agonizing fears. The ant ogres seem to have depended upon the fact that the ant is so ab- sorbed in her work that she carries her booty up hill and down dale with small regard for the topography of the country. Thus they build their pits, with instinctive faith that they will some day be entered by these creatures, obsessed by industry and careless of what lies in the path. The pits vary with the size of the ogre at the bottom; there are as many sized pits as are beds in the story of Golden Locks and the bears; often the pits are not more than an inch across, or even less, while others are two inches in diameter. They are always made in sandy or crumbly soil and in a place protected from wind and rain; they vary in depth in propor- ' tion to their width, for the slope is always as steep as the soil will stand without slipping. All that can be seen of the ogre at the bottom, is a pair of long, curved jaws, looking innocent enough at the very center of the pit. If we dig the creature out, we find it a comical looking insect. It is humpbacked, with a big, spindle-shaped abdomen; from its great awkward body projects a flat, sneaking looking head, armed in front with the sickle jaws which are spiny and bristly near the base, and smooth, sharp and curved at the tip. The strange thing about these jaws is that they lead directly to the throat, since the ant-lion has no mouth. Each jaw is made up of two pieces which are grooved where they join and thus form a tube with a hole in the tip through which the industrious blood of the ants can be sucked; not only do the sharp sickle points hold the victim, but there are three teeth along the side o
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