ecomes more surprising still if we consider
the variety of the game stored in a single burrow. The Mantis-killing
Tachytes, for instance, preys indiscriminately upon all the Mantides
that occur in her neighbourhood. I see her warehousing three of them,
the only varieties, in fact, that I know in my district. They are the
following: the Praying Mantis (M. religiosa, LIN.), the Grey Mantis
(Ameles decolor, CHARP. (Cf. "The Life of the Grasshopper": chapter
10.--Translator's Note.)) and the Empusa (E. pauperata, LATR. (Cf. idem:
chapter 9.--Translator's Note.)). The numerical predominance in the
Tachytes' cells belongs to the Praying Mantis; and the Grey Mantis
occupies second place. The Empusa, who is comparatively rare on the
brushwood in the neighbourhood, is also rare in the store-houses of the
Wasp; nevertheless her presence is repeated often enough to show that
the huntress appreciates the value of this prey when she comes across
it. The three sorts of game are in the larval state, with rudimentary
wings. Their dimensions, which vary a good deal, fluctuate between
two-fifths and four-fifths of an inch in length.

The Praying Mantis is a bright green; she boasts an elongated prothorax
and an alert gait. The other Mantis is ash-grey. Her prothorax is short
and her movements heavy. The coloration therefore is no guide to the
huntress, any more than the gait. The green and the grey, the swift
and the slow are unable to baffle her perspicacity. To her, despite the
great difference in appearance, the two victims are Mantes. And she is
right.

But what are we to say of the Empusa? The insect world, at all events in
our parts, contains no more fantastic creature. The children here, who
are remarkable for finding names which really depict the animal, call
the larva "the Devilkin." It is indeed a spectre, a diabolical phantom
worthy of the pencil of a Callot. (Jacques Callot (1592-1635), the
French engraver and painter, famous for the grotesque nature of his
subjects.--Translator's Note.) There is nothing to beat it in the
extravagant medley of figures in his "Temptation of Saint Anthony." Its
flat abdomen, scalloped at the edges, rises into a twisted crook; its
peaked head carries on the top two large, divergent, tusk-shaped horns;
its sharp, pointed face, which can turn and look to either side,
would fit the wily purpose of some Mephistopheles; its long legs have
cleaver-like appendages at the joints, similar to the arm-pie