INSECT MASK. 297 



the caitiff's face ! Yes, a veritable mask, which has hidden, 

 hitherto, both from us, and from his victim, the grimmest half 

 of his grim visage. He has dropped his vizard but not en- 

 tirely, for it still hangs pendant from his chin. And now, 

 do we see aright? the mask, as if touched by the wand of 

 Harlequin, assumes another shape ; it has changed into a sort 

 of toothed and jointed trap, which opens, then closes on its 

 prey, an unlucky tiny tadpole, which is brought, wriggling, 

 into convenient reach of the jaws ready to receive him. But 

 this trap-like mask is so curious a machine, and so dissimilar 

 to ought besides, that we must borrow* a description of it 

 more explanatory than our own. 



" Conceive your under lip to be horny instead of fleshy, 

 and to be elongated perpendicularly downwards, so as to wrap 

 over your chin, and extend to its bottom ; that this elongation 

 is there expanded into a triangular convex plate, attached to it 

 by a joint, so as to bend upwards again and fold over the face 

 as high as the nose, concealing not only the chin and the 

 first-mentioned elongation, but the mouth and part of the 

 cheeks ; conceive, moreover, that to the end of this last-men- 

 tioned plate are fixed two other convex ones, so broad as to 

 cover the nose and temples ; that these can open at pleasure 

 transversely, like a pair of jaws, so as to expose the nose and 

 mouth, and that their inner edges, where they meet, are cut into 

 numerous short teeth or spines, or armed with one or more 



* Insect Transformations, p. 163. 



