xxvi The Life of the Spider 



of the higher manufactures and form the bright 

 centre of the insect's psychology. One would, 

 in the same way, require several chapters to 

 convey a summary idea of the nuptial rites 

 which constitute the quaintest and most fabu- 

 lous episodes of these new Arabian Nights. 



The male of the Spanish-fly, for instance, 

 begins by frenziedly beating his spouse with 

 his abdomen and his feet, after which, with his 

 arms crossed and quivering, he remains long in 

 ecstasy. The newly-wedded Osmiae clap their 

 mandibles terribly, as though it were a matter 

 rather of devouring each other ; on the other 

 hand, the largest of our moths, the Great 

 Peacock, who is the size of a bat, when drunk 

 with love finds his mouth so completely atrophied 

 that it becomes no more than a vague shadow. 

 But nothing equals the marriage of the Green 

 Grasshopper, of which I cannot speak here, 

 for it is doubtful whether even the Latin 

 language possesses the words needed to describe 

 it as it should be described. 



All said, the marriage-customs are dreadful 

 and, contrary to that which happens in every 

 other world, here it is the female of the pair 



