I will except the Ephippiger, who is so meek in appearance. In my cage, when laying-time is at hand, she has no scruples about taking a bite at her companions, without possessing the excuse of hunger. Most of the males end in this lamentable fashion, half-devoured. The mutilated victim protests; he would rather, he could indeed go on living. Having no other means of defence, he produces with his bow a few grating sounds which this time decidedly are not a nuptial song. Dying with a great hole in his belly, he utters his plaint in a like manner as though he were rejoicing in the sun. His instrument strikes the same note whether it express sorrow or gladness. CHAPTER XII THE WHITE-FACED DECTICUS: THE LAYING AND THE HATCHING OF THE EGGS The White-faced Decticus is an African insect that in France hardly ventures beyond the borders of Provence and Languedoc. She wants the sun that ripens the olives. Can it be that a high temperature acts as a stimulus to her matrimonial eccentricities, or are we to look upon these as family customs, independent of climate? Do things happen under frosty skies just as they do under a burning sun? I go for my information to another Decticus, the Alpine Analota (A. alpina, Yersin), who inhabits the high ridges of Mont Ventoux, [48] which are covered with snow for half the year. Many a time, during my old botanical expeditions, I had noticed the portly insect hopping among the stones from one bit of turf to the next. This time, I do not go in search of it: it reaches me by post. Following my indications, an obliging forester [49] climbs up there twice in the first fortnight of August and brings me back the wherewithal to fill a cage comfortably. In shape and colouring it is a curious specimen of the Grasshopper family. Satin-white underneath, it has the upper part sometimes olive-black, sometimes bright-green or pale-brown. The organs of flight are reduced to mere vestiges. The female has as wing-cases two short white scales, some distance apart; the male shelters under the edge of his corselet two little concave plates, also white, but laid one on top of the other, the left on the right. These two tiny cupolas, with bow and sounding-board, rather suggest, on a smaller scale, the musical instrument of the Ephippiger, whom the mountain insect resembles to some extent in general appearance. I do not know what sort of tune cymbals so small as these can produce. I do not remember ever hearing them in their native haunts; and three months’ home breeding gives me no further information in this respect. Though they lead a joyous life, my captives are always dumb.