Insect Colouring 



season for the wedding-dress, let us dissect 

 him under water. 



The adipose tissue, which is abundant and 

 yellowish white, consists of a lace of wide, 

 irregular, criss-cross meshes. It is a tubu- 

 lar network swollen with a powdery matter 

 which condenses into minute chalk-white 

 spots, standing out very plainly against a 

 transparent background. When crushed in 

 a drop of water, a fragment of this fabric 

 yields a milky cloud in which the microscope 

 shows an infinite number of opaque floating 

 atoms, without revealing the smallest blob of 

 oil, the sign of fatty matter. 



Here again we have ammonium urate. 

 Treated with nitric acid, the adipose tissue 

 of the Decticus produces an effervescence sim- 

 ilar to that of chalk and yields enough murex- 

 ide to redden a tumblerful of water. A 

 strange adipose body, this bundle of lace 

 crammed with uric acid without a trace of 

 fatty matter ! What would the Decticus do 

 with nutritive reserves, seeing that he is near 

 his end, now that the nuptial season has ar- 

 rived? Delivered from the necessity of sav- 

 ing for the future, he has only to spend in 

 gaiety the few days left to him; he has only 

 to adorn himself for the supreme festival. 



He therefore converts into a paint-factory 

 281 



