She will permit a whole series of males to have intercourse with
her, always eating them up directly afterward. Fabre has even
seen her eating the male while still on her back, his head and
neck gone, but his body still firmly attached. (J.H. Fabre,
_Souvenirs Entomologiques_, fifth series, p. 307.) Fabre also
describes in great detail (ibid., ninth series, chs. xxi-xxii)
the sexual parades of the Languedoc scorpion (_Scorpio
occitanus_), an arachnid. These parades are in public; for their
subsequent intercourse the couple seek complete seclusion, and
the female finally eats the male.
An insect (a species of _Empis_) has been described which excites
the female by manipulating a large balloon. "This is of
elliptical shape, about seven millimeters long (nearly twice as
long as the fly), hollow, and composed entirely of a single layer
of minute bubbles, nearly uniform in size, arranged in regular
circles concentric with the axis of the structure. The
beautiful, glistening whiteness of the object when the sun shines
upon it makes it very conspicuous.
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