oor cousin, and it stopped
just at the extremity of his nasal appendage.

It was the best place this haxapode could choose. At that distance,
Cousin Benedict's two eyes, by making their visual rays converge,
could, like two lens, dart their double look on the insect.

"Almighty God!" exclaimed Cousin Benedict, who could not repress a
cry, "the tuberculous _manticore_."

Now, he must not cry it out, he must only think it. But was it not too
much to ask from the most enthusiastic of entomologists?

To have on the end of his nose a tuberculous _manticore_, with large
elytrums--an insect of the cicendeletes tribe--a very rare specimen
in collections--one that seems peculiar to those southern parts of
Africa, and yet not utter a cry of admiration; that is beyond human
strength.

Unfortunately the _manticore_ heard this cry, which was almost
immediately followed by a sneeze, that shook the appendage on which it
rested. Cousin Benedict wished to take possession of it, extended his
hand, shut it violently, and only succeeded in seizing the end of his
own nose.

"Malediction!" exclaimed he. But then he showed a remarkable coolness.

He knew that the tuberculous _manticore_ only flutters about, so to
say, that it walks rather than flies. He then knelt, and succeeded in
perceiving, at less than ten inches from his eyes, the black point
that was gliding rapidly in a ray of light.

Evidently it was better to study it in this independent attitude. Only
he must not lose sight of it.

"To seize the _manticore_ would be to risk crushing it," Cousin
Benedict said to himself. "No; I shall follow it! I shall admire it! I
have time enough to take it!"

Was Cousin Benedict wrong? However that may be, see him now on all
fours, his nose to the ground like a dog that smells a scent, and
following seven or eight inches behind the superb hexapode. One moment
after he was outside his hut, under the midday sun, and a few minutes
later at the foot of the palisade that shut in Alvez's establishment.

At this place was the _manticore_ going to clear the enclosure with a
bound, and put a wall between its adorer and itself? No, that was not
in its nature, and Cousin Benedict knew it well. So he was always
there, crawling like a snake, too far off to recognize the insect
entomologically--besides, that was done--but near enough to perceive
that large, moving point traveling over the ground.

The _manticore_, arrived near the palisade, had m