To a certain degree the nature of the diet acts as an excuse: Dectici and Grasshoppers are first and foremost carnivores. Coming upon a corpse of their own species, the matrons consume it more or less thoroughly, even if it be that of last night’s lover. Considered as game, one is as good as another. But what shall we say of the vegetarians? As the laying-season approaches, the Ephippiger turns upon her companion, still full of life, and bites him, makes a hole in his belly and eats as much of him as her appetite allows. The easy-going Cricket suddenly develops a shrewish character: she beats the mate who lately wooed her in such impassioned serenades; she rends his wings, breaks his fiddle and even goes so far as to tear a few mouthfuls from the musician. [97] So it seems probable that this mortal aversion of the female for the male after the pairing is fairly common, especially among the carnivorous insects. What is the reason of these atrocious habits? If circumstances favour me, I shall not fail to investigate it. Of the whole colony in the cage I have five females left at the beginning of August. Their conduct has changed greatly since the eating of the males. Food has become indifferent to them. They no longer run up to the Snail, whom I serve half-stripped of his shell; they scorn the plump Mantis and the Caterpillar, their erstwhile delights; they doze under the shelter of the board and rarely show themselves. Can this mean preparation for the laying? I enquire into this day by day, being most anxious to see the first appearance of the little larvæ, an artless first appearance, deprived of all solicitude, as I foresee from the lack of industry in the mother. I wait in vain: there is no laying. Meanwhile the cool nights of October arrive. Four females perish, this time by a natural death. The survivor takes no notice of them. She refuses them burial in her stomach, a burial at one time accorded to the males, dissected alive. She cowers as deep down in the ground as the scanty earth of the cage permits. In November, when Mont Ventoux is white with the first snows, she grows torpid in her hiding-place. Let us henceforth leave her in peace. She will live through the winter, everything seems to tell us, and produce her eggs next spring. NOTES [1] One of the wild Bees. Cf. The Mason-bees, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. viii; and Bramble-bees and Others, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. ii., iv. and vii.—Translator’s Note. [2] A parasitic Bee. Cf. The Mason-bees: chap. viii.—Translator’s Note. [3] For these wild bees, cf. Bramble-bees and others: passim.—Translator’s Note. [4] Drone-flies.—Translator’s Note. [5] Cf. The Hunting Wasps, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. vii.; and The Mason-Wasps, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. ix and x.—Translator’s Note.