Cerocomae, Mylabres and Zonites 



dergoes a few moults; I have witnessed at 

 least one of these. The creature stripped 

 of its skin appears as it was before, without 

 any change of form. It instantly resumes 

 its meal, which was interrupted while the old 

 skin was shed; it embraces with its legs an- 

 other Mantis on the heap and proceeds to 

 nibble her. Whether simple or multiple, 

 this moult has nothing in common with the 

 renewals due to the hypermetamorphosis, 

 which so profoundly change the creature's 

 appearance. 



Ten days' rearing in the partitioned box is 

 enough to prove how right I was when I 

 looked upon the parasitic larva feeding on 

 Mantes as the origin of the pseudochrysalis, 

 the object of my eager attention. The 

 creature, which I kept supplied with addi- 

 tional food as long as it accepted it, stops 

 eating at last. It becomes motionless, re- 

 tracts its head slightly and bends itself into 

 a hook. Then the skin splits across the head 

 and down the thorax. The tattered slough 

 is thrust back; and the pseudochrysalis ap- 

 pears in sight, absolutely naked. It is white 

 at first, as the larva was; but by degrees and 

 fairly rapidly it turns to the russet hue of 

 virgin wax, with a brighter red at the tips 

 of the various tubercles which indicate the 

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