o is still inert, on to her
other side, then brings his second copulatory apparatus to the
female opening and starts afresh. When the process is definitely
completed the male leaves the female, suddenly retiring to a
little distance. The female, who had remained completely
motionless for four hours, suddenly runs after the male. But she
only pursues him for a short distance, and the two spiders remain
together without any danger to either. Lecaillon disbelieves the
statement of Romanes (in his _Animal Intelligence_) that the
female eats the male after copulation. But this certainly seems
to occur sometimes among insects, as illustrated by the following
instance described by so careful an observer of insects as Fabre.

The _Mantis religiosa_ is described by Fabre as contemplating the
female for a long time in an attitude of ecstasy. She remains
still and seems indifferent. He is small and she is large. At
last he approaches; spreads his wings, which tremble
convulsively; leaps on her back, and fixes himself there. The
preludes are long and the coupling itself sometimes occupies five
or six hours. Then they separate. But the same day or the
following day she seizes him and eats him up in small mouthfuls.
She will permit a whole series of males to have intercourse with
her, always eating them up directly afterward. Fabre has even
seen her eating the male while still on her back, his head and
neck gone, but his body still firmly attached. (J.H. Fabre,
_Souvenirs Entomologiques_, fifth series, p. 307.) Fabre also
describes in great detail (ibid., ninth series, chs. xxi-xxii)
the sexual parades of the Languedoc scorpion (_Scorpio
occitanus_), an arachnid. These parades are in public; for their
subsequent intercourse the couple seek complete seclusion, and
the female finally eats the male.

An insect (a species of _Empis_) has been described which excites
the female by manipulating a large balloon. "This is of
elliptical shape, about seven millimeters long (nearly twice as
long as the fly), hollow, and composed entirely of a single layer
of minute bubbles, nearly uniform in size, arranged in regular
circles concentric with the axis of the structure. The
beautiful, glistening whiteness of the object when the sun shines
upon it makes it very conspicuous. The bubbles were slightly