Page:The Life of the Spider.djvu/23

Preface 6 And monster after monster passes, such as the imagination of Bosch or Callot never conceived! The larva of the Rose-chafer, which, though it have legs under its belly, always travels on its back; the Blue-winged Locust, unluckier still than the Flesh-fly and possessing nothing wherewith to perforate the soil, to escape from the tomb and reach the light but a cervical bladder, a viscous blister; and the Empusa, who, with her curved abdomen, her great projecting eyes, her legs with knee-pieces armed with cleavers, her halberd, her abnormally tall mitre would certainly be the most devilish goblin that ever walked the earth, if, beside her, the Praying Mantis were not so frightful that her mere aspect deprives her victims of their power of movement when she assumes, in front of them, what the entomologists have termed 'the spectral attitude.'

One cannot mention, even casually, the numberless industries—nearly all of absorbing interest—exercised among the rocks, under the ground, in the walls, on the branches, the grass, the flowers, the fruits and down to 19