left.

There is one other matter to be mentioned, before observing the
metamorphosis. The position adopted by the young Empusae in the
wire-gauze cage is invariably the same from start to finish. Gripping
the trellis-work by the claws of its four hind-legs, the insect
occupies the top of the dome and hangs motionless, back downwards, with
the whole of its body supported by the four suspension-points. If it
wishes to move, the front harpoons open, stretch out, grasp a mesh and
draw it to them. When the short walk is over, the lethal arms are
brought back against the chest. One may say that it is nearly always
the four hind-shanks which alone support the suspended insect.

And this reversed position, which seems to us so trying, lasts for no
short while: it is prolonged, in my cages, for ten months without a
break. The Fly on the ceiling, it is true, occupies the same attitude;
but she has her moments of rest: she flies, she walks in a normal
posture, she spreads herself flat in the sun. Besides, her acrobatic
feats do not cover a long period. The Empusa, on the other hand,
maintains her curious equilibrium for ten months on end, without a
break. Hanging from the trellis-work, back downwards, she hunts, eats,
digests, dozes, casts her skin, undergoes her transformation, mates,
lays her eggs and dies. She clambered up there when she was still quite
young; she falls down, full of days, a corpse.

Things do not happen exactly like this under natural conditions. The
insect stands on the bushes back upwards; it keeps its balance in the
regular attitude and turns over only in circumstances that occur at
long intervals. The protracted suspension of my captives is all the
more remarkable inasmuch as it is not at all an innate habit of their
race.

It reminds one of the Bats, who hang, head downwards, by their
hind-legs from the roof of their caves. A special formation of the toes
enables birds to sleep on one leg, which automatically and without
fatigue clutches the swaying bough. The Empusa shows me nothing akin to
their contrivance. The extremity of her walking-legs has the ordinary
structure: a double claw at the tip, a double steelyard-hook; and that
is all.

I could wish that anatomy would show me the working of the muscles and
nerves in those tarsi, in those legs more slender than threads, the
action of the tendons that control the claws and keep them gripped for
ten months, unwearied in waking and sleeping. If some