Preface 

 6 



And monster after monster passes, such as 

 the imagination of Bosch or Callot never 

 conceived! The larva of the Rose-chafer, 

 which, though it have legs under its belly, 

 always travels on its back; the Blue-winged 

 Locust, unluckier still than the Flesh-fly and 

 possessing nothing wherewith to perforate the 

 soil, to escape from the tomb and reach the 

 light but a cervical bladder, a viscous blister; 

 and the Empusa, who, with her curved ab- 

 domen, her great projecting eyes, her legs 

 with knee-pieces armed with cleavers, her hal- 

 berd, her abnormally tall mitre would cer- 

 tainly be the most devilish goblin that ever 

 walked the earth, if, beside her, the Praying 

 Mantis were not so frightful that her mere 

 aspect deprives her victims of their power of 

 movement when she assumes, in front of 

 them, what the entomologists have termed 

 'the spectral attitude.' 



One cannot mention, even casually, the 

 numberless industries nearly all of absorb- 

 ing interest exercised among the rocks, un- 

 der the ground, in the walls, on the branches, 

 the grass, the flowers, the fruits and down to 

 19 



