Praying mantis

“ When entering her shelter under the rock, where she has made her burrow, the Sphex finds, perched on a blade of grass, a Praying Mantis, a carnivorous insect which hides cannibal habits under a pious appearance. The danger threatened by this robber ambushed on her path must be known to the Sphex, for she lets go her game and pluckily rushes upon the Mantis, to inflict some heavy blows and dislodge her, or at all events to frighten her and inspire her with respect. The robber does not move, but closes her lethal machinery, the two terrible saws of the arm and fore-arm. ”

“ It looked at the squabbling ants with its gigantic eyes that somehow appeared like dark glasses worn by a monstrosity. It moved primly, precisely toward them. Two small black creatures tugged at a hairy section of a giant centipede's leg. The great pale-green creature—a mantis; a praying mantis twenty feet tall in its giraffe-like walking position—the great creature loomed over them, looking down as through sunglasses. A foreleg moved like lightning. An ant weighing nearly as much as a man stridulated shrilly, terribly, as it was borne aloft. ”

“ Owing to this accommodation of tint—in summer, like the grass and plants amid which he seeks his prey, and, in autumn, like the twigs and branches whereon he alights—the praying mantis, though by no means a rarity in the fields and gardens of the South, commonly escapes all eyes save the sharpest. ”

“ The graspers live only in hot countries. Maybe you have seen the picture of one of them—the praying mantis he is called, just because he holds up his front legs as if he were praying. But it isn’t prayers he is saying. He is waiting for some insect to come near enough so he may grab and eat it. ”

“ And remember that the other, the male of the Praying Mantis, ends in the stomach of his gluttonous spouse.
The laying follows close upon the disappearance of the males.
One word more on comparative manners. The Mantis goes in for battle and cannibalism; the Empusa is peaceable and respects her kind. To what cause are these profound moral differences due, when the organic structure is the same? Perhaps to the difference of diet. Frugality, in fact, softens character, in animals as in men; gross feeding brutalizes it. ”

“ The ferocious nature of these strange insects is well known, and is in striking contrast with the popular name, "praying mantis," which they have gained by the pious attitude they take while watching for the flies and other insects which they feed upon.
About sunrise, August 28, 1880, Mr. Rust's attention was attracted by a pair of mantis, whether Mantis religiosa or not, he was not sure, but from the length of the body and the shortness of the wings he was inclined to think them of some other species. ”

“ I have many painful memories of this hook. Many a time, when Mantis-hunting, I have been clawed by the insect and forced to ask somebody else to release me. No insect in this part of the world is so troublesome to handle. The Mantis claws you with her pruning-hooks, pricks you with her spikes, seizes you in her vice, and makes self-defence [42] impossible if you wish to keep your captive alive.
THE PRAYING MANTIS
A long time ago, in the days of ancient Greece, this insect was named Mantis, or the Prophet
When at rest, the trap is folded back against the chest and looks quite harmless. ”

“ In the southern provinces of France, where the Mantis is very abundant, both the characters of praying and pointing out the lost way, as above mentioned by Mouffet, are still ascribed to it by the peasantry, as is evidenced by the above mentioned names they know them by. And here, as wherever else this superstition obtains, it is considered a great crime to injure the Mantis, and as, at least, a very culpable neglect not to place it out of the way of any danger to which it seems exposed. ”

“ Fig. 2.—The Walking Leaf.
States, is the mantis or "praying mantis." It is very common throughout the South. It will be seen that the fore legs are armed with strong spines or teeth, used for securely holding any insect that may fall into its clutches. I have seen this insect leisurely devouring flies held between these legs. From it there was no Fig. 3.—Nemoptera coa. chance of escape. A specimen observed in captivity washed itself in the same manner as a cat, rubbing its head and face with its fore legs. In South America a species of mantis is said to seize and devour small birds. ”

“ It has very long front legs, with a row of sharp teeth running along their inner margin, and when it is hungry it holds these limbs over its head, in very much the attitude of prayer. That is why it is called the praying-mantis. ”

“ An Indian mantis or praying insect, a little less wicked, though no less cruel than the spiders, deceives the flies who come to his arms under the false pretence of being a quiet leaf, upon which they may light in safety for rest and refreshment. Yet another abandoned member of the same family, relying boldly upon the resources of tropical nature, gets itself up as a complete orchid, the head and fangs being moulded in the exact image of the beautiful blossom, and the arms folding treacherously around the unhappy insect which ventures to seek for honey in its deceptive jaws. ”

“ The sandal-shod natives are particularly liable to it, and of the Mexican troops at Chan Santa Cruz a large percentage have one or two toes missing. In the south of the Peninsula you find that curious insect the Praying Mantis, so called in allusion to the attitude of its forelegs, which are held as are hands in prayer. These creatures wage remorseless war on one another, and fight until the stronger literally pulls its foe's head off. ”

“ Butterflies, in the Poona district at any rate, are disappointing. They are larger than the English ones—the scale of most things in India is big—but their colours are not strikingly brilliant. Some of the large moths are handsome, but not more so than many of the English nocturnal moths.
The most comical insect is the praying mantis. It is of a fresh green colour, often three or four inches long, and something like a grasshopper in appearance. When it alights on your table in the evening, attracted by the lamp, it behaves in a seemingly ridiculous way. ”

“ The nest of the Praying Mantis may be found almost everywhere in places exposed to the sun: on stones, wood, vine stocks, the twigs of bushes, stems of dried grass, and even on products of human industry, such as fragments of brick, rags of heavy cloth, and pieces of old boots. Any support will suffice, so long as it offers inequalities to which the base of the nest may adhere, and so provide a solid foundation. ”

“ Anthony who preached to the fishes, of St. Raymond who put up his cowl and floated from Spain to Africa like a nautilus, of St. Nicolas who raised three boys from the dead after they had been killed and cut up and salted in a tub by a cruel man that wanted to eat them, and of that strange insect called a Praying Mantis which alighted upon St. ”

“ Of orthopterous Natal insects, the large green mantis is certainly a distinguished chief. He is a very remarkable fellow, powerful alike upon wing and leg, but much given to fits of lethargy and brown study. His traditional religious exercise, indeed, is simply a lying in wait for what the gods may send in the way of food. He fixes himself, as if in rapt contemplation, upon some convenient stalk or leaf, and then bends up his chest and shoulders into an almost erect position, pressing together his arms in front, and looking well out before him, with the palpi of his lips slightly vibrating. ”

“ The mantis was then placed near the fire, and we hoped that warmth might prove restorative.
The mantis is never met with in England; it is a native of the warmer parts of Europe, and various species are found in the tropics. It is a large and powerful insect, varying from three to five inches in length; it has six legs. The four legs which it uses in walking are long and slender, while the pair nearest the head are much thicker, and are armed with very sharp spines, with which the mantis kills the insects upon which it feeds. ”

“ The Mantis religiosa of America is said to make a most interesting pet when tamed, which can be done in a very short time and with but little pains. Professor Glover, of the Maryland Agricultural College, tells me he once knew a lady in Washington who kept a Mantis on her window which soon grew so tame as to take readily a fly or other small insect out of her hand. ”

“ The name mantis (diviner) was given to this insect, it is said, by the Greeks, in accordance with the notion that, when the creature assumes its peculiar attitude of meditation, it is engaged in the contemplation of futurity. Naturalists have encouraged the superstition by giving names to the different species which imply some kind of sanctity; thus, we have Mantis oratoria, Mantis religiosa, Mantis superstitiosa, etc. ”

“ Laying hold of whatever part of the intruder’s awkward body happens to come near them, they “freeze on,” their hind legs being used as drag-breaks to impede the mantis’s forward march. The mantis, although covered with busy foes, marches on, with that prayerful aspect—the beseeching, upturned head and pious, folded, hand-like front-legs—that has earned it its name. ”

“ They are very pugnacious, fencing with their sword-like limbs “like hussars with sabres,” the larger frequently devouring the smaller, and the females the males. The Chinese keep them in bamboo cages, and match them like fighting-cocks.
The common species fixes its somewhat nut-like egg capsules on the stems of plants in September. The young are hatched in early summer, and resemble the adults, but are without wings.
The green coloration and shape of the typical mantis are procryptic, serving to conceal the insect alike from its enemies and prey. ”

“ The mantis is an evil creature from the standpoint of a grasshopper, but he would be regarded as a benefactor by those who have a grudge against grass- hoppers or against other insects that the mantis destroys. Hence, we must reckon the mantis as at least a beneficial insect relative to human welfare. A large species of mantis, introduced a few years ago into the eastern States from China, is now regarded as a valuable agricul- rural asset because of the number of harmful insects it destroys. ”

“ My prize was stalking his prey when I espied him. Nothing can be stiller than the Mantis religiosa when he is waiting to spring upon his victim; and at that propitious moment, armed with, a tumbler in one hand and a palmetto fan in the other, I made him my captive. I might have taken him with my fingers easily; but, though I do not believe, as the negroes do, that the bite of the devil's-riding-horse is "bad luck," or that this insect will Fig. 1.—Mantis religiosa. "curse with blindness" by spitting in its captor's eyes if it can, I have a horror of the creature, and I prefer not to touch it. ”

“ For the sake of the security of what has been styled a “protective resemblance,” the mantis takes up its quarters amidst its boughs. Just as the leaf-frog secretes itself on the young and light green foliage, or the white ptarmigan resorts to the snowy downs of the frozen north, so does the mantis here take up its abode on the tree as purple as itself, and there endeavour to find a world in which it may conceal its singular shape. This part of Africa seemed to produce many species of this remarkable genus. ”

“ If it injures you in any way, which it does but seldom, you will lose a valued friend by calumny. Never kill a Mantis, as it bears charms against evil.
From the great resemblance of many species of Mantis to the leaves of the trees upon which they feed, some travelers, who have observed them, have declared that they saw the leaves of trees become living creatures, and take flight. Madame Merian informs us of a similar opinion among the Indians of Surinam, who believed these insects grew like leaves upon the trees, and when they were mature, loosened themselves and crawled, or flew away. ”

“ Only if a thing fled did the mantis pursue with deadly ferocity. Even then it dined with monstrous deliberation as this one dined now. Still, mantises could be seen from a distance and hidden from. They were not the terror which had driven the humans even from their hiding-places.
It had been two weeks since the giant hunting-spider had come through a mountain pass into this valley to prey upon the life within it. It was gigantic even of its kind. It was deadliness beyond compare. The first human to see it froze in terror. It was disaster itself. Its legs spanned yards. ”

“ That mantis never did fly; he crawled around the edge of the cage at last to a spot where it touched a higher shelf of the flower-stand, and, as if he had just discovered that he was a prisoner no longer, scrambled with more haste than discretion up to the next shelf, where a huge black spider, whose lair was just under the verge of the shelf, pounced upon him so suddenly that retreat was impossible. The mantis was taken completely by surprise, and the start he gave was so violent that but for the spider's swift, encompassing arms, he must have fallen backward off the shelf. ”

“ Good people, with your childish simplicity, how great was your mistake! Those sanctimonious airs are a mask for Satanic habits; those arms folded in prayer are cut-throat weapons: they tell no beads, they slay whatever passes within range. Forming an exception which one would never have suspected in the herbivorous order of the Orthoptera, the Mantis feeds exclusively on living prey. She is the tigress of the peaceable entomological tribes, the ogress in ambush who levies a tribute of fresh meat. Picture her with sufficient strength ”