MYRMELION, or ANT-LION, in zoology; a genus of insects of the nemoptera order. There are 15 species, of which the most remarkable is the formicarius, or ant-eater. The perfect insect is oblong, and of a brown colour. Its head is broad, with two large eyes on the sides, and two antennæ beneath. The neck is rather long, cylindrical, and narrower than the head. The thorax seems composed of two parts; one anterior,
rior, whence arise the upper wings; and the other posterior, which gives birth to the under ones. The abdomen is of an oblong form, and consists of eight segments; the wings are diaphanous, adorned with a net-work of black fibres, charged with several blackish brown spots. The larva of this insect is very fond of ants, which it hunts after, whence its name. The larva proceeds from the egg which the perfect insect had deposited in very fine dry sand, in a place sheltered from rain, either within a cleft of a wall or of the ground, or at the foot of a wall generally exposed to the south sun. There they are hatched, and make their usual abode. Their colour is grey, and their body, which is covered with small protuberances, is of an oval form. Its posterior extremity terminates in a point, and is of use to sink itself down into the sand; for it only walks retrogressively, though furnished with six feet. Before the head is placed a dentated forceps, sharp and hollow within, with which the creature catches and sucks flies and other insects, but especially ants. This forceps serves as a mouth or rostrum, as well as for an offensive weapon. The animal's retrograde march not allowing it to run after the insects on which it is to feed, it uses a stratagem. It dives down into the sand, and turning about in a circle, hollows out concentric furrows, gradually deeper and deeper, casting at a distance with its horns the sand it takes from that place. At length it manages to dig a hole in shape like a funnel, at the bottom of which it takes its station, concealed in the sand, nothing but the open extended forceps appearing above it. Mischievous overtakes every insect that happens to fall into that hole. The myrmelio, who is apprized of it by the grains of sand rolling down to the bottom, overwhelms him with a shower of dust, which it ejects with its horns, then drags the insect to the bottom of the hole, where it seizes him with its forceps, and sucks its vitals. It does not even spare other myrmelions who in their motions to and fro chance to fall into it. When the larva is come to its full growth, it digs no more holes; it moves backwards and forwards, tracing irregular furrows on the sand, and at length spins itself a cocoon, shaped like a ball, the outward part of which is formed of the sand in which it lived, and the inward is lined with fine white silk. Within this cocoon it turns to a chrysalis, which is curved into a semicircle, and wherein may be distinguished all the parts of the perfect insect that is to issue from it. It is more oblong than the larva, but much shorter than the perfect insect. After a certain period, the chrysalis casts off its slough, turns to a winged insect, and breaks through the cocoon in order to take its flight. The perfect insect is very scarce, but is sometimes met with in sandy places, and near rivulets.