TWO STRANGE GRASSHOPPERS 



same from first to last, and a most strange attitude it is. 

 It grips the wire by the claws of its four hind-legs, and 

 hangs motionless, back downwards, with the whole of its 

 body suspended from those four points. If it wishes to 

 move, its harpoons open in front, stretch out, grasp a 

 mesh of the wire, and pull. This process naturally 

 draws the insect along the wire, still upside down. 

 Then the jaws close back against the chest. 



And this upside-down position, which seems to us so 

 trying, lasts for no short while. It continues, in my 

 cages, for ten months without a break. The Fly on the 

 ceiling, it is true, adopts the same position; but she has 

 her moments of rest. She flies, she walks in the usual 

 way, she spreads herself flat in the sun. The Empusa, 

 on the other hand, remains in her curious attitude for ten 

 months on end, without a pause. Hanging from the 

 wire netting, back downwards, she hunts, eats, digests, 

 dozes, gets through all the experiences of an insect's life, 

 and finally dies. She clambers up while she is still quite 

 young; she falls down in her old age, a corpse. 



This custom is all the more remarkable in that it is 

 practised only in captivity. It is not an instinctive 

 habit of the rape; for out of doors the insect, except at 

 rare intervals, stands on the bushes back upwards. 



Strange as the performance is, I know of a similar case 

 that is even more peculiar: the attitude of certain 



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