Part 6

We are now able to say that the insects found beneath the surface of the earth are as follows:

1. Insects which live underground during their whole lives, feeding (_a_) on roots and rootlets; (_b_) on dead and decaying vegetable matter; (_c_) on other insects.

2. Insects which live in the nests of ants.

3. Insects which have their nests underground, but which get their food elsewhere.

4. Insects which live underground only in their younger stages of life.

5. Insects which hide their eggs or pupæ underground.

6. Carnivorous insects, and insects which feed on decaying animal matter, which occasionally burrow underground in search of food.

I hope it will be clear from what we have said that insects must take an important part in the changes in the character of the soil which are constantly going on, quite as important indeed as do the earthworms about which Darwin wrote.

+----------------------------------------------------------------- + | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. | | | | Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant | | form was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. | | | | Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. | | | | Mid-paragraph illustrations have been moved between paragraphs | | and some illustrations have been moved closer to the text that | | references them. | | | | Italicized words are surrounded by underline characters, | | _like this_, bolded words by equal signs, =like this=. | | | | The Contents table was added by the transcriber. | +------------------------------------------------------------------+