The Psyches: the Laying 



eggs in the house which she has just left ; she 

 is bequeathing the maternal cottage to her 

 heirs. Some thirty hours pass and the ovi- 

 positor is at last withdrawn. The laying is 

 finished. 



A little wadding, supplied by the coronet 

 on the hind-quarters, closes the door and al- 

 lays the dangers of invasion. The fond 

 mother makes a barricade for her brood of 

 the sole ornament which, in her extreme in- 

 digence, she possesses. Better still, she makes 

 a rampart of her body. Bracing herself con- 

 vulsively on the threshold of her home, she 

 dies there, dries up there, devoted to her 

 family even after death. It needs an accident, 

 a breath of air, to make her fall from her 

 post. 



Let us now open the case. It contains the 

 chrysalid wrapper, intact except for the front 

 breach through which the Psyche emerged. 

 The male, because of his wings and his 

 plumes, very cumbersome articles when he is 

 about to make his way through the narrow 

 pass, takes advantage of his chrysalis state 

 to make a start for the door and come out 

 half-way. Then, bursting his amber tunic, 

 the delicate Moth finds an open space, where 



