Translator's Note.)

This instinctive taxonomy becomes more surprising still if we consider the
variety of the game stored in a single burrow. The Mantis-killing Tachytes,
for instance, preys indiscriminately upon all the Mantides that occur in
her neighbourhood. I see her warehousing three of them, the only varieties,
in fact, that I know in my district. They are the following: the Praying
Mantis (M. religiosa, LIN.), the Grey Mantis (Ameles decolor, CHARP. (Cf.
"The Life of the Grasshopper": chapter 10.--Translator's Note.)) and the
Empusa (E. pauperata, LATR. (Cf. idem: chapter 9.--Translator's Note.)).
The numerical predominance in the Tachytes' cells belongs to the Praying
Mantis; and the Grey Mantis occupies second place. The Empusa, who is
comparatively rare on the brushwood in the neighbourhood, is also rare in
the store-houses of the Wasp; nevertheless her presence is repeated often
enough to show that the huntress appreciates the value of this prey when
she comes across it. The three sorts of game are in the larval state, with
rudimentary wings. Their dimensions, which vary a good deal, fluctuate
between two-fifths and four-fifths of an inch in length.

The Praying Mantis is a bright green; she boasts an elongated prothorax and
an alert gait. The other Mantis is ash-grey. Her prothorax is short and her
movements heavy. The coloration therefore is no guide to the huntress, any
more than the gait. The green and the grey, the swift and the slow are
unable to baffle her perspicacity. To her, despite the great difference in
appearance, the two victims are Mantes. And she is right.

But what are we to say of the Empusa? The insect world, at all events in
our parts, contains no more fantastic creature. The children here, who are
remarkable for finding names which really depict the animal, call the larva
"the Devilkin." It is indeed a spectre, a diabolical phantom worthy of the