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Like the larva, she is very abstemious and contents herself with a Fly or two as her daily ration. Big eaters are naturally quarrelsome. The Mantis, bloated with Locusts, soon becomes irritated and shows fight. The Empusa, with her frugal meals, does not indulge in hostile demonstrations.
She will scorn the morsel, though it would seem to be of excellent flavour, seeing that Panzer's Tachytes prefers it to any other form of game. Offer her a young Empusa, who differs so widely from the Mantis in shape and colour: she will accept without hesitation and operate before your eyes.
Sleep, which resembles a return to the peace of non-existence, is, like waking, an effort, here of the leg, of the curled tail; there of the claw, of the jaws. The transformation is effected about the middle of May, and the adult Empusa makes her appearance. She is even more remarkable in figure and attire than the Praying Mantis.
No, for in some Bembex-burrows we shall find Sphaerophoriae, those slender, thong-like creatures, and Bombylii, looking like velvet pincushions; no again, for in the pits of the Silky Ammophila we shall see, side by side, the caterpillar of the ordinary shape and the Measuring-worm, a living pair of compasses which progresses by alternately opening out and closing; no, once more, for in the storerooms of Stizus ruficornis and the Mantis-hunting Tachytes we see stacked beside the Mantis the Empusa, her unrecognizable caricature.
This group of insects is most abundant in the tropical regions of Africa, South America, and India, but some species are found in the warmer parts of North America, Europe, and Australia. Burmeister says that M. argentina, of Buenos Ayres, seizes and eats small birds. The genera allied to Mantis Vates, Empusa, Harpax, and Schizocephala occur in the tropics.
This one hunts the Locust and nothing else; that one the Mantis and the Empusa. Yet another is addicted to the Grey Worm and another to the Looper. Fools! How great was your mistake in allowing the wise eclecticism of your ancestress, whose relics now repose in the hard mud of some lacustrian stratum, to become obsolete! How much better would things be for you and yours!
Here there is a complete absence of the porous envelope, although the nest is exposed to the weather, like the previous examples, affixed to some twig or fragment of rock. The lack of the insulating rind is a sign of different climatic conditions. The eggs of the Empusa hatch shortly after they are laid, in warm and sunny weather.
On the other hand, what Sims or Bateman ever imagined weirder caricature than the grotesque larva of the Oniticella, with its extravagant dorsal hump; or the fantastic and alarming silhouette of the Empusa, with its scaly belly raised crozierwise and mounted on four long stilts, its pointed face, turned-up moustaches, great prominent eyes, and a "stupendous mitre": the most grotesque, the most fantastic freaks that creation can ever have evolved?
I myself thought so at first; and any one, relying upon false analogies, would think the same. It is a fresh error: for all her warlike aspect, the Empusa is a peaceful creature that hardly repays the trouble of rearing. Installed under the gauze bell, whether in assemblies of half a dozen or in separate couples, she at no time loses her placidity.
The Ammophila, with the static paradox afforded by her mandibles; the Empusa, with her claws unwearied by ten months' hanging, leave the physiologist perplexed and make him wonder what really constitutes rest. In absolute fact, there is no rest, apart from that which puts an end to life. The struggle never ceases; some muscle is always toiling, some nerve straining.
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