The Mantis was so slender, and the other so corpulent! Alas! I little knew the fury of carnage animating the creature that wielded those tiny grappling-irons! Next morning I met with a disagreeable surprise: I found the little Mantis devouring the great moth.

The head and the fore part of the thorax had already disappeared.
Horrible creature! at what an evil hour you came to me! Goodbye to my researches, the plans which I had caressed all night in my imagination! For three years for lack of a subject, I was unable to resume them.
Bad luck, however, was not to make me forget the little I had learned.
On one single occasion about sixty males had arrived.

Considering the rarity of the Oak Eggar, and remembering the years of fruitless search on the part of my helpers and myself, this number was no less than stupefying.

The undiscoverable had suddenly become multitudinous at the call of the female.
Whence did they come?
From all sides, and undoubtedly from considerable distances.

During my prolonged searches every bush and thicket and heap of stones in my neighbourhood had become familiar to me, and I can assert that the Oak Eggar was not to be found there.