August Fifth
The ant lion is the peculiar larva of a fly. It forms small, funnel-like depressions in the dry sand or dust, throwing out the grains with its broad, flat head. You probably have seen an unfortunate ant struggling desperately to gain the top of the death pit. Gradually the drifting sand carries it nearer and nearer the jaws of the ant lion, waiting at the bottom, and finally it falls a victim to Nature's ingenuity.
August Sixth
The moist and shaded highland where the thorn apple, willow, red-twigged osier, and second-growth maples thrive, is the haunt of the mild and timid woodcock. Tracks in the mud may be seen where one has been walking about, and here and there clusters of holes smaller than a lead pencil tell that it has been "boring" for worms with its long, sensitive bill.
Notes
August Seventh
The harvest fly (cicada, "lyre-man," or dog-day locust) is really not a locust. Unlike its relative, the seventeen-year locust, which for seventeen years remains in the ground, a larva, it produces young yearly. In the woods and villages, its monotonous buzzing, sizzling note is heard, and is taken as a sign of warm weather.