The traps vary in size in proportion to the age of the insects which construct them. The young insects only form very small ones; but as even from the moment of their birth they are destined to toil for their food, they do not wait in idleness and hunger because they cannot make large efforts, but are content to make little traps not more than a few parts of an inch in diameter. Thus they set us the needful example of not despising to do small things because our strength is not yet equal to the performance of as much as we could desire. The diameter of the trap formed by a full-grown insect is about three inches; the depth about two. When its labours are over, it has been well remarked, the insect now only requires patience--but it must have a good deal of it! It generally buries itself, all but its jaws, in the sand at the bottom, and here awaits its victims. If it requires much patience, surely it also needs to have much power of endurance of hunger, for it may wait for days sometimes without catching any prey. Frequently, when this is the case, it marches out of its trap, and tries its fortune in some more favourable spot. But see! an ant who has been out foraging for the young ants at home is hastening back laden with sweet treasures, when suddenly she finds her path arrested by what appears to her to be a deep but smooth precipice. To plunge down and rise on the opposite side is a shorter cut, in her estimation, than to go round; or perhaps she is led by curiosity to wish to explore this singular cavity, and she plants her feet on its treacherous edge, causing a few grains of sand to roll down and give notice to the wary giant below that a victim is at hand. A step back, and her life would be saved; but no, she leaves the bank, trusts herself to the unfaithful soil of the sides of the precipice, and instantly rolls down in a cloud of dust to the bottom. Terror has now laid hold of her, and with all speed she strives to clamber up the unsteady sides. For a moment escape appears possible, but the Argus-eyed monster below starts up into activity, and piling upon his head a huge load of sand, he shoots it after the escaping ant, and once more brings her down covered with dust into his embrace. The terrible jaws are instantly closed upon the unhappy insect, and in a few minutes her existence is at an end, the savage enemy shaking her violently, or dashing her quivering frame against the earth.