The children of my neighbourhood, impressed by its startling shape, call it "the Devilkin." In their imaginations, the queer little creature savours of witchcraft.

One comes across it, though always sparsely, in spring, up to May; in autumn; and sometimes in winter, if the sun be strong.

The tough grasses of the waste-lands, the stunted bushes which catch the sun and are sheltered from the wind by a few heaps of stones are the chilly Empusa's favourite abode.
Let us give a rapid sketch of her.

The abdomen, which always curls up so as to join the back, spreads paddle wise and twists into a crook.
Pointed scales, a sort of foliaceous expansions arranged in three rows, cover the lower surface, which becomes the upper surface because of the crook aforesaid.

The scaly crook is propped on four long, thin stilts, on four legs armed with knee-pieces, that is to say, carrying at the end of the thigh, where it joins the shin, a curved, projecting blade not unlike that of a cleaver.
Above this base, this four-legged stool, rises, at a sudden angle, the stiff corselet, disproportionately long and almost perpendicular.