ces which
the knights of old used to bear upon their elbows. Perched high upon the
shanks of its four hind-legs, with its abdomen curled, its thorax raised
erect, its front-legs, the traps and implements of warfare, folded
against its chest, it sways limply from side to side, on the tip of the
bough.

Any one seeing it for the first time in its grotesque pose will give
a start of surprise. The Tachytes knows no such alarm. If she catches
sight of it, she seizes it by the neck and stabs it. It will be a treat
for her children. How does she manage to recognize in this spectre the
near relation of the Praying Mantis? When frequent hunting-expeditions
have familiarized her with the last-named and suddenly, in the midst of
the chase, she encounters the Devilkin, how does she become aware that
this strange find makes yet another excellent addition to her larder?
This question, I fear, will never receive an adequate reply. Other
huntresses have already set us the problem; others will set it to us
again. I shall return to it, not to solve it, but to show even more
plainly how obscure and profound it is. But we will first complete the
story of the Mantis-killing Tachytes.

The colony which forms the subject of my investigations is established
in a mound of fine sand which I myself cut into, a couple of years ago,
in order to unearth a few Bembex larvae. The entrances to the Tachytes'
dwelling open upon the little upright bank of the section. At the
beginning of July the work is in full swing. It must have been going on
already for a week or two, for I find very forward larvae, as well as
recent cocoons. There are here, digging into the sand or returning from
expeditions with their booty, some hundred females, whose burrows, all
very close to one another, cover an area of barely a square yard. This
hamlet, small in extent, but nevertheless densely populated, shows us
the Mantis-slayer under a moral aspect which is not shared by the Locust
slayer, Panzer's Tachytes, who resembles her so closely in costume.
Though engaged in individual tasks, the first seeks the society of her
kind, as do certain of the Sphex-wasps, while the second establishes
herself in solitude, after the fashion of the Ammophila. Neither the
personal form nor the nature of the occupation determines sociability.

Crouching voluptuously in the sun, on the sand at the foot of the bank,
the males lie waiting for the females, to plague them as they pass. They
are