The tarantula, whose habits are far from gentle, is not cruel to her suitor. This monster who spins no web, spins out a long idyllic courtship. Extended preludes, puerile games, delicate caresses, lambkins' leapings. Finally the female surrenders fully. The male places her as he wishes, chooses for her the pose most pleasing to him, and lies obliquely against her, gently and repeatedly taking the sperm from his abdomen he insinuates each of his palpes, one after the other in the swollen vulva of the female. The break-away is sudden, a jump. Still more tender are the courtships of the leaping spider; they advance by little rushes, stop, watch, leap on their prey, insect or fly, or else float at the wind's will on the end of a long hanging web-thread. When male and female meet, they approach, tap each other with forefeet and tentacles, separate, reapproach, recommence. After a thousand salutations, they pose head to head, the male climbs onto the female, stretches out until he reaches the abdomen. Then he lifts the extremity of it, applies his palpe to the vulva, and retires. The same act is begun again several times, the female is all compliance and offers no insult to her companion. There are certain exceptions to the method of spiders; the reapers, little balls mounted on immense legs, act by cavalage. The males have a retractile prong fixed by two ligaments to the abdomen, the female an oviduct which opens in vulva and spreads interiorly into a vast pouch, the resting place for the eggs. The male does not manage this female, a strong objector, save by seizing her mandibles with his pincers. Overcome by this bite she submits; the coupling lasts several seconds.
The dragon-fly, gracefully called "la demoiselle," is one of the finest insects in the world and certainly the most beautiful of those which fly in our climate; no soft butterfly colour is a match for the moving shimmer of its supple abdomen, and the bright head-colours as of steely-blue helmet. Description? It is difficult to find two alike; one has tawny body and dove-grey abdomen, spotted with yellow, and black feet, transparent wings with brown borders or nerve-veinings, or these in black and white; another has a yellow head, brown eyes, brown corselet veined in green, an abdomen touched with green and yellow, irised wings; another called "la Vierge" is gilded green, or blue with green shimmer, and spotless wings; another "la Jouvencelle" has wings thin to invisibility, is clothed in all shades, metallic blue, reddish-brown green, iris violet, tawny chrysanthemum, whatever her fundamental colour she encircles her elegant barrel with rings of black velvet. Naturalists divide these insects into libellules, æshnes, agrions; Fabricius disputes with Linnæus; peasants and children (for grown-ups despise nature) call them "demoiselles," "vierges" and "jouvencelles."[1] Some fly very high, in the trees, others along the streams and over pond edges; others over ferns, reeds, broom. I have passed days in the sun watching them, waiting to see their courtships; I have seen them, and know that Réaumur has not deceived us. It was on the surface of a pond among the border flowers, a morning of July, a flaming morning. The "Vierge," corselet of blue green, almost invisible wings, fluttered in great numbers, slowly, as if seriously; the hour of parade had arrived. And everywhere couples formed, rings of azure hung from the grass blades, trembled on leaves of the water-lentil, everywhere green arrows and blue arrows played at flight, and wing-brushing, at joining. The big eyes and strong head of the libellule give an air of gravity to the brilliancy of this spectacle.