darkness he has worn a dirty parchment overall; for four years he has
mined the soil with his talons, and now the mud-stained sapper is
suddenly clad in the finest raiment, and provided with wings that rival
the bird's; moreover, he is drunken with heat and flooded with light,
the supreme terrestrial joy. His cymbals will never suffice to celebrate
such felicity, so well earned although so ephemeral.




CHAPTER V

THE MANTIS.--THE CHASE


There is another creature of the Midi which is quite as curious and
interesting as the Cigale, but much less famous, as it is voiceless. If
Providence had provided it with cymbals, which are a prime element of
popularity, it would soon have eclipsed the renown of the celebrated
singer, so strange is its shape, and so peculiar its manners. It is
called by the Provençals _lou Prègo-Diéu_, the creature which prays to
God. Its official name is the Praying Mantis (_Mantis religiosa_, Lin.).

For once the language of science and the vocabulary of the peasant
agree. Both represent the Mantis as a priestess delivering oracles, or
an ascetic in a mystic ecstasy. The comparison is a matter of antiquity.
The ancient Greeks called the insect [Greek: Mantis], the divine, the
prophet. The worker in the fields is never slow in perceiving analogies;
he will always generously supplement the vagueness of the facts. He has
seen, on the sun-burned herbage of the meadows, an insect of commanding