ere over for the day. They would
certainly be renewed on the morrow, since the courtship was without
result on account of the barrier of the wire-gauze cover.

But, alas I to my great disappointment, they were not resumed, and the
fault was mine. Late in the day a Praying Mantis was brought to me,
which merited attention on account of its exceptionally small size.
Preoccupied with the events of the afternoon, and absent-minded, I
hastily placed the predatory insect under the same cover as the moth.
It did not occur to me for a moment that this cohabitation could lead to
any harm. The Mantis was so slender, and the other so corpulent!

Alas! I little knew the fury of carnage animating the creature that
wielded those tiny grappling-irons! Next morning I met with a
disagreeable surprise: I found the little Mantis devouring the great
moth. The head and the fore part of the thorax had already disappeared.
Horrible creature! at what an evil hour you came to me! Goodbye to my
researches, the plans which I had caressed all night in my imagination!
For three years for lack of a subject, I was unable to resume them.

Bad luck, however, was not to make me forget the little I had learned.
On one single occasion about sixty males had arrived. Considering the
rarity of the Oak Eggar, and remembering the years of fruitless search
on the part of my helpers and myself, this number was no less than
stupefying. The undiscoverable had suddenly become multitudinous at the
call of the female.

Whence did they come? From all sides, and undoubtedly from considerable
distances. During my prolonged searches every bush and thicket and heap
of stones in my neighbourhood had become familiar to me, and I can
assert that the Oak Eggar was not to be found there. For such a swarm to
collect as I found in my laboratory the moths must have come from all
directions, from the whole district, and within a radius that I dare not
guess at.

Three years went by and by chance two more cocoons of the Monk or Oak
Eggar again fell into my hands. Both produced females, at an interval of
a few days towards the middle of August; so that I was able to vary and
repeat my experiments.

I rapidly repeated the experiments which had given me such positive
results in the instance of the Great Peacock moth. The pilgrims of the
day were no less skilful at finding their mates than the pilgrims of the
night. They laughed at all my tricks. Infallibly they found the
prison