The arrangement of the limbs is faultlessly symmetrical. The folded legs make one think of arms crossed upon the breast in a sacerdotal attitude. Our painters have no better symbol for representing mystic resignation to the hand of destiny. Joined together, the tarsi form two long, knotted cords that lie along the nymph’s sides like a priest’s stole. The wings and wing-cases, fitting by pairs into a common sheath, are flattened into wide paddles like flakes of talc. In front, the antennæ are bent into elegant crosiers and then slip under the knees of the first pair of legs and rest their tips on the wing-paddles. The sides of the corselet project slightly, like a head-dress recalling the spreading white caps of our French nuns. My children, when I show them this wonderful creature, find a very happy phrase to describe it: “It’s a little girl making her first communion,” they say, “a little girl in her white veil.” What a lovely gem, if it were permanent and incorruptible! An artist seeking for a decorative subject would find an exquisite model here. And this gem moves. At the least disturbance, it fidgets about on its back, very much like a Gudgeon laid high and dry on the river-bank. Feeling itself in danger, the terrified creature strives to make itself terrifying. Next day, the nymph is clouded with a faint smoky tint. The work of a final transformation begins and is continued for a fortnight. At last, towards the end of July, the nymphal garment is reduced to shreds, torn by the movements of the stretching and waving limbs. The full-grown insect appears, clad in rusty-red and white. The colour soon becomes darker and gradually changes to black. The insect has completed its development. I recognize it as the naturalists’ Ergates faber, which, translated into the vernacular, means “the journeyman blacksmith.” If any one knows why this long-horned Beetle, this lover of old pine-stumps, is called a working blacksmith, I will thank him to tell me. The Ergates is a magnificent insect, vying with the Great Capricorn in size, but with broader wing-cases and a slightly flatter body. The male carries on his corselet two broad, triangular, glistening facets. These constitute his blazon and serve no other purpose than that of masculine adornment. I have tried to observe by lantern-light—for the insect is nocturnal in its habits—the nuptial charms of the blazoned Beetle of the pines in his native surroundings. My son Paul went all over the ravaged plantation, lantern in hand, between ten and eleven at night; he explored the old stumps one by one. The expedition led to nothing; no Ergates was seen, of either sex. We need not regret this failure: by rearing the insects in the cages we learn the most interesting details of the business.