A ferocious creature, the grub of the Hemerobius, disembowels plant-lice, making of their skins a battle-dress, covering its back with the eviscerated victims, "as the Red Indian ties about his loins the tresses of his scalped enemies." Caterpillars are surrounded by the implacable voracity of the Carabidae: "The furry skins are gaping with wounds; their contents escape in knots of entrails, bright green with their aliment, the needles of the pine-tree; the caterpillars writhe, struggling with loop-like movements, gripping the sand with their feet, dribbling and gnashing their mandibles. Those as yet unwounded are digging desperately in the attempt to escape underground. Not one succeeds. They are scarcely half buried before some beetle runs to them and destroys them by an eviscerating wound." At the centre of its net, which seems "woven of moonbeams," in the midst of its snare, a glutinous trap of infernal ingenuity, or hidden at a distance in its cabin of green leaves, the Epeïra fasciata waits and watches for its prey. Let the terrible hornet, or the Libellula auripennis, flying from stem to stem, fall into the limed snare; the insect struggles, endeavours to unwind itself; the net trembles violently as though it would be torn from its cables. Immediately the spider darts forward, running boldly to the intruder. With rapid gestures the two hinder limbs weave a winding- sheet of silk as they rotate the victim in order to enshroud it...The ancient Retiarius, condemned to meet a powerful beast of prey, appeared in the arena with a net of cordage lying upon his left shoulder; the animal sprang upon him; the man, with a sudden throw, caught it in the meshes; a stroke of the trident despatched it. Similarly the Epeïra throws its web, and when there is no longer any movement under the white shroud the spider draws closer; its venomous fangs perform the office of the trident. (13/10.) The Praying Mantis, that demoniac creature which alone among the insects turns its head to gaze, "whose pious airs conceal the most atrocious habits," remains on the watch, motionless, for hours at a time. Let a great grasshopper chance to come by: the Mantis follows it with its glance, glides between the leaves, and suddenly rises up before it; "and then assumes its spectral pose, which terrifies and fascinates the prey; the wing-covers open, the wings spring to their full width, forming a vast pyramid which dominates the back; a sort of swishing sound is heard, like the hiss of a startled adder; the murderous fore-limbs open to their full extent, forming a cross with the body, and exhibiting the axillae ornamented with eyes vaguely resembling those of the peacock's tail, part of the panoply of war, concealed upon ordinary occasions. These are only exhibited when the creature makes itself terrible and superb for battle. Then the two grappling-hooks are thrown; the fangs strike, the double scythes close together and hold the victim as in a vice." (13/11.)