The teeth of the saw are there, but have none of their future sharpness. I am able to strip a leg partially with the point of a knife and to extract the spines from their horny mould. They are germs of spikes, flexible buds which bend under the slightest pressure and resume their upright position as soon as the pressure is removed. These spikes lie backwards when the leg is about to be drawn out; they stand up again and solidify while it emerges. I am witnessing not the mere stripping of gaiters from limbs completely enclosed, but rather a sort of birth and growth which disconcert us by their rapidity. Much in the same way, but with far less delicate precision, do the claws of the Crayfish, at moulting-time, withdraw the soft flesh of their two fingers from the old stony sheath. The shanks are free at last. They are folded limply in the groove of the thigh, there to mature without moving. The abdomen is next stripped. Its fine tunic wrinkles, rumples and pushes back towards the extremity, which alone for some time longer remains clad in the moulting skin. Except at this point, the whole of the Locust is now bare. It is hanging perpendicularly, head down, supported by the claws of the now empty leggings. Throughout this long and finikin work, the four talons have never yielded, thanks to the delicacy and care with which the extraction has been conducted. The insect, fixed by the stern to its cast skin, does not move. Its abdomen is immensely swollen, apparently distended by the reserve of organizable humours which the expansion of the wings and wing-cases will soon set in motion. The Locust is resting; he is recovering from his exertions. Twenty minutes are spent in waiting. Then, by an effort of its back, the hanging insect raises itself and with its front tarsi grabs hold of the cast skin fastened above it. Never did acrobat, swinging by his feet from the bar of a trapeze, display greater strength of loin in lifting himself. When this feat is accomplished, what remains to be done is nothing. With the support which he has now gripped, the Locust climbs a little higher and reaches the wire gauze of the cage. This takes the place of the brushwood which the free insect would utilize for the transformation. He fixes himself to it with his four front feet. Then the tip of the abdomen succeeds in releasing itself, whereupon, loosened with one last shake, the empty husk drops to the ground.