CHAPTER 3. THE EMPUSA.

The sea, life's first foster-mother, still preserves in her depths many of those singular and incongruous shapes which were the earliest attempts of the animal kingdom; the land, less fruitful, but with more capacity for progress, has almost wholly lost the strange forms of other days. The few that remain belong especially to the series of primitive insects, insects exceedingly limited in their industrial powers and subject to very summary metamorphoses, if to any at all. In my district, in the front rank of those entomological anomalies which remind us of the denizens of the old coal-forests, stand the Mantidae, including the Praying Mantis, so curious in habits and structure. Here also is the Empusa (E. pauperata, Latr.), the subject of this chapter.

Her larva is certainly the strangest creature among the terrestrial fauna of Provence: a slim, swaying thing of so fantastic an appearance that uninitiated fingers dare not lay hold of it. The children of my neighbourhood, impressed by its startling shape, call it "the Devilkin." In their imaginations, the queer little creature savours of witchcraft. One comes across it, though always sparsely, in spring, up to May; in autumn; and sometimes in winter, if the sun be strong. The tough grasses of the waste-lands, the stunted bushes which catch the sun and are sheltered from the wind by a few heaps of stones are the chilly Empusa's favourite abode.

Let us give a rapid sketch of her. The abdomen, which always curls up so as to join the back, spreads paddle wise and twists into a crook. Pointed scales, a sort of foliaceous expansions arranged in three rows, cover the lower surface, which becomes the upper surface because of the crook aforesaid. The scaly crook is propped on four long, thin stilts, on four legs armed with knee-pieces, that is to say, carrying at the end of the thigh, where it joins the shin, a curved, projecting blade not unlike that of a cleaver.

Above this base, this four-legged stool, rises, at a sudden angle, the stiff corselet, disproportionately long and almost perpendicular. The end of this bust, round and slender as a straw, carries the hunting-trap, the grappling limbs, copied from those of the Mantis. They consist of a terminal harpoon, sharper than a needle, and a cruel vice, with the jaws toothed like a saw. The jaw formed by the arm proper is hollowed into a groove and carries on either side five long spikes, with smaller indentations in between. The jaw formed by the forearm is similarly furrowed, but its double saw, which fits into the groove of the upper arm when at rest, is formed of finer, closer and more regular teeth. The magnifying-glass reveals a score of equal points in each row. The machine only lacks size to be a fearful implement of torture.

The head is in keeping with this arsenal. What a queer-shaped head it is! A pointed face, with walrus moustaches furnished by the palpi; large goggle eyes; between them, a dirk, a halberd blade; and, on the forehead a mad, unheard of thing: a sort of tall mitre, an extravagant head-dress that juts forward, spreading right and left into peaked wings and cleft along the top. What does the Devilkin want with that monstrous pointed cap, than which no wise man of the East, no astrologer of old ever wore a more splendiferous? This we shall learn when we see her out hunting.

The dress is commonplace; grey tints predominate. Towards the end of the larval period, after a few moultings, it begins to give a glimpse of the adult's richer livery and becomes striped, still very faintly, with pale-green, white and pink. Already the two sexes are distinguished by their antennae. Those of the future mothers are thread-like; those of the future males are distended into a spindle at the lower half, forming a case or sheath whence graceful plumes will spring at a later date.

Behold the creature, worthy of a Callot's fantastic pencil. (Jacques Callot (1592-1635), the French engraver and painter, famed for the grotesque nature of his subjects.--Translator's Note.) If you come across it in the bramble-bushes, it sways upon its four stilts, it wags its head, it looks at you with a knowing air, it twists its mitre round and peers over its shoulder. You seem to read mischief in its pointed face. You try to take hold of it. The imposing attitude ceases forthwith, the raised corselet is lowered and the creature makes off with mighty strides, helping itself along with its fighting-limbs, which clutch the twigs. The flight need not last long, if you have a practised eye. The Empusa is captured, put into a screw of paper, which will save her frail limbs from sprains, and lastly penned in a wire-gauze cage. In this way, in October, I obtain a flock sufficient for my purpose.

How to feed them? My Devilkins are very little; they are a month or two old at most. I give them Locusts suited to their size, the smallest that I can find. They refuse them. Nay more, they are frightened of them. Should a thoughtless Locust meekly approach one of the Empusae, suspended by her four hind-legs to the trellised dome, the intruder meets with a bad reception. The pointed mitre is lowered; and an angry thrust sends him rolling. We have it: the wizard's cap is a defensive weapon, a protective crest. The Ram charges with his forehead, the Empusa butts with her mitre.

But this does not mean dinner. I serve up the House-fly, alive. She is accepted, without hesitation. The moment that the Fly comes within reach, the watchful Devilkin turns her head, bends the stalk of her corselet slantwise and, flinging out her fore-limb, harpoons the Fly and grips her between her two saws. No Cat pouncing upon a Mouse could be quicker.

The game, however small, is enough for a meal. It is enough for the whole day, often for several days. This is my first surprise: the extreme abstemiousness of these fiercely-armed insects. I was prepared for ogres: I find ascetics satisfied with a meagre collation at rare intervals. A Fly fills their belly for twenty-four hours at least.

Thus passes the late autumn: the Empusae, more and more temperate from day to day, hang motionless from the wire gauze. Their natural abstinence is my best ally, for Flies grow scarce; and a time comes when I should be hard put to it to keep the menageries supplied with provisions.

During the three winter months, nothing stirs. From time to time, on fine days, I expose the cage to the sun's rays, in the window. Under the influence of this heat-bath, the captives stretch their legs a little, sway from side to side, make up their minds to move about, but without displaying any awakening appetite. The rare Midges that fall to my assiduous efforts do not appear to tempt them. It is a rule for them to spend the cold season in a state of complete abstinence.

My cages tell me what must happen outside, during the winter. Ensconced in the crannies of the rockwork, in the sunniest places, the young Empusae wait, in a state of torpor, for the return of the hot weather. Notwithstanding the shelter of a heap of stones, there must be painful moments when the frost is prolonged and the snow penetrates little by little into the best-protected crevices. No matter: hardier than they look, the refugees escape the dangers of the winter season. Sometimes, when the sun is strong, they venture out of their hiding-place and come to see if spring be nigh.

Spring comes. We are in March. My prisoners bestir themselves, change their skin. They need victuals. My catering difficulties recommence. The House-fly, so easy to catch, is lacking in these days. I fall back upon earlier Diptera: Eristales, or Drone-flies. The Empusa refuses them. They are too big for her and can offer too strenuous a resistance. She wards off their approach with blows of her mitre.