e
forehead a mad, unheard of thing: a sort of tall mitre, an extravagant
head-dress that juts forward, spreading right and left into peaked
wings and cleft along the top. What does the Devilkin want with that
monstrous pointed cap, than which no wise man of the East, no
astrologer of old ever wore a more splendiferous? This we shall learn
when we see her out hunting.

The dress is commonplace; grey tints predominate. Towards the end of
the larval period, after a few moultings, it begins to give a glimpse
of the adult's richer livery and becomes striped, still very faintly,
with pale-green, white and pink. Already the two sexes are
distinguished by their antennae. Those of the future mothers are
thread-like; those of the future males are distended into a spindle at
the lower half, forming a case or sheath whence graceful plumes will
spring at a later date.

Behold the creature, worthy of a Callot's fantastic pencil. (Jacques
Callot (1592-1635), the French engraver and painter, famed for the
grotesque nature of his subjects.--Translator's Note.) If you come
across it in the bramble-bushes, it sways upon its four stilts, it wags
its head, it looks at you with a knowing air, it twists its mitre round
and peers over its shoulder. You seem to read mischief in its pointed
face. You try to take hold of it. The imposing attitude ceases
forthwith, the raised corselet is lowered and the creature makes off
with mighty strides, helping itself along with its fighting-limbs,
which clutch the twigs. The flight need not last long, if you have a
practised eye. The Empusa is captured, put into a screw of paper, which
will save her frail limbs from sprains, and lastly penned in a
wire-gauze cage. In this way, in October, I obtain a flock sufficient
for my purpose.

How to feed them? My Devilkins are very little; they are a month or two
old at most. I give them Locusts suited to their size, the smallest
that I can find. They refuse them. Nay more, they are frightened of
them. Should a thoughtless Locust meekly approach one of the Empusae,
suspended by her four hind-legs to the trellised dome, the intruder
meets with a bad reception. The pointed mitre is lowered; and an angry
thrust sends him rolling. We have it: the wizard's cap is a defensive
weapon, a protective crest. The Ram charges with his forehead, the
Empusa butts with her mitre.

But this does not mean dinner. I serve up the House-fly, alive. She is
accepted, without hesitati