crawling on his back--a fact which seems to have escaped his biographers
heretofore. It is, in truth, the underside of his head which is
uppermost at the mouth of the burrow, and his six zigzag legs are
distorted backward to enable him to keep this contrary position. And
what a hideous monster is this, whose flat, metallic, dirt-begrimed face
stares skyward from this circular burrow! Well might it strike terror to
the heart of the helpless insect which should suddenly find himself
confronted by the motionless stare of these four cruel, glistening black
eyes! But he is now a "fish out of water," and is about as helpless,
nature never having intended him to be seen outside of his burrow--at
least, in this present form. There he dwells, setting his circular trap
at the mouth of his pitfall, and waiting for the voluntary sacrifice of
his insect neighbors to fill his maw.

But this uncouth shape, which so courts obscurity, is not always thus so
reasonably retiring. A few glass tumblers inverted above as many of
these larger holes during the summer will intercept the winged sprite
into which he is shortly to be transfigured--a brilliant metallic-hued
beetle, perhaps flashing with bronzy gold or glittering like an
emerald--the beautiful _cicindela_, or tiger-beetle, known to the
entomologist as the most agile winged among the coleopterous tribe;
known to the populace, perhaps, simply as a bright glittering fly that
revels in the hot summer sands of the sea-shore or dusty country road,
making its short spans of glittering flight from the very feet of the
observer.

[Illustration]

If we capture one of them with our butterfly-net he will be found to
bear a general resemblance to the portrait here indicated--a
slender-legged, proportionably large-headed beetle, with formidable jaws
capable of wide extension, and re-enforced by an insatiate carnivorous
hunger inherited from his former estate.

It will thus be seen that all the holes which we observe in the ground
are not ant-holes; nor, indeed, are they monopolized by the
tiger-beetles. There were other tunnels which I saw dug in my square
yard of earth on that morning, which, while not of quite such depth,
represented equally deep-laid plans.

While observing my cicindelas on that morning, my attention was at
length diverted by an old friend of mine, who gave promise of much
entertainment--a tiny black wasp, whose restless, rapid, zigzag,
apparently aimless wanderings over