38 THE WONDERS OF INSTINCT 



the swaying bough. The Empusa shows me nothing akin 

 to their contrivance. The extremity of her walking-legs 

 has the ordinary structure: a double claw at the tip, a 

 double steelyard-hook ; and that is all. 



I could wish that anatomy would show me the working 

 of the muscles and nerves in those tarsi, in those legs 

 more slender than threads, the action of the tendons that 

 control the claws and keep them gripped for ten months, 

 unwearied in waking and sleeping. If some dexterous 

 scalpel should ever investigate this problem, I can recom- 

 mend another, even more singular than that of the Em- 

 pusa, the Bat and the bird. I refer to the attitude of 

 certain Wasps and Bees during the nights rest. 



An Ammophila with red fore-legs (A. holosericea) is 

 plentiful in my enclosure towards the end of August and 

 selects a certain lavender-border for her dormitory. At 

 dusk, especially after a stifling day, when a storm is 

 brewing, I am sure to find the strange sleeper settled 

 there. Never was more eccentric attitude adopted for a 

 night's rest ! The mandibles bite right into the lavender- 

 stem. Its square shape supplies a firmer hold than a 

 round stalk would do. With this one and one only prop, 

 the animal's body juts out stiffly, at full length, with legs 

 folded. It forms a right angle with the supporting axis, 

 so much so that the whole weight of the insect, which has 

 turned itself into the arm of a lever rests upon the mandi- 

 bles. 



The Ammophila sleeps extended in space by virtue of 

 her mighty jaws. It takes an animal to think of a thing 

 like that, which upsets all our preconceived ideas of re- 



