The ejaculatory canal opens at the ninth ring of the abdomen, that is to say, at the point; the copulating apparatus is fixed at the second ring, that is, near the neck, and is composed of a penis, of hooks, and a reservoir: the male bending his long belly first fills the reservoir, then empties it into the organs of the female. For a long time he pursues the desired mistress, plays with her, finally seizes her above the neck with the terminal pincers of his abdomen, then, turning like a serpent, he bends forward and continues to fly, a beast with four pairs of wings. In this attitude, the male, sure of himself, with the air of the hour's indifferent master, chases midges, visits flowers and the axilla of plants where the midges sleep, nabs them with his feet and puts them into his mouth. Finally the female accedes, bends downward her flexible abdomen and makes its orifice coincide with the male's pectoral penis: the two beastlets are but one splendid ring with a double cup, a ring trembling with life and with fire. No gesture of love can be conceived more charming than that of the female slowly bending back her blue body, going half way toward her lover, who erect on his forefeet bears, with taut muscles, the full weight of the movement. It is so pure, so immaterial, one would say that two ideas joined in the limpidity of ineluctable thought. [1] In America we have, so far as I know, only the terms "dragon fly" and "darning-needle," and for the larger ones "devil's darning-needle."--E. P. CHAPTER XIV THE MECHANISM OF LOVE _VI. Cannibalism in sex.--Females who devour the male, those who devour the spermatophore.--Probable use of these practices.--Fecundation by the whole male.--Loves of the white foreheaded dectic.--The green grasshopper.--The Alpine analote.--The ephippigere.--Further reflections of the cannibalism of sex.--Loves of the praying mantis._