THE OSMIiE 229 



see if some female will at last make up her mind to 

 emerge. 



One does, in point of fact. She is covered with dust 

 and has the disordered toilet that is inseparable from the 

 hard work of the deliverance. A lover has seen her, so 

 has a second, likewise a third. All crowd round her. 

 The lady responds to their advances by clashing her 

 mandibles, which open and shut rapidly, several times 

 in succession. The suitors forthwith fall back ; and they 

 also, no doubt to keep up their dignity, execute savage 

 mandibular grimaces. Then the beauty retires into the 

 arbor and her wooers resume their places on the threshold. 

 A fresh appearance of the female, who repeats the play 

 with her jaws: a fresh retreat of the males, who do the 

 best they can to flourish their own pincers. The Osmi?e 

 have a strange way of declaring their passion : with that 

 fearsome gnashing of their mandibles, the lovers look as 

 though they meant to devour each other. It suggests the 

 thumps affected by our yokels in their moments of gal- 

 lantry. 



The ingenuous idyll is soon over. The females, who 

 grow more numerous from day to day, inspect the prem- 

 ises; they buzz outside the glass galleries and the reed 

 dwellings; they go in, stay for a while, come out, go in 

 again and then fly away briskly into the garden. They 

 return, first one, then another. They halt outside, in the 

 sun, or on the shutters fastened back against the wall; 

 they hover in the window-recess, come inside, go to the 

 reeds and give a glance at them, only to set off again and 

 to return soon after. Thus do they learn to know their 



