32 THE WONDERS OF INSTINCT 



mustaches furnished by the palpi; large goggle eyes, be- 

 tween them, a dirk, a halberd blade; and, on the fore- 

 head a mad, unheard-of thing: a sort of tall miter, 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; gray tints predominate. 

 Towards the end of the larval period, after a few moult- 

 ings, 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 dis- 

 tinguished 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. 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 miter 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. 



1 Jacques Callot (1592-1635), the French engraver and painter, 

 famed for the grotesque nature of his subjects. — Translator's Note. 



