"The Coming Race", Chapter X, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

dissimulation: concealment of one's thoughts, feelings, or character; pretense

linnet: a mainly brown and gray finch with a reddish breast and forehead

The picture used is "Praying Mantis Sexual Cannibalism closeup of Female eating Male" by Oliver Koemmerling, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en).

Nom nom!!

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1951/1951-h/1951-h.htm#link2HCH0010