of a rosebush will produce. None of our insects is so inconvenient to
handle. The Mantis digs its knife-blades into your flesh, pierces you
with its needles, seizes you as in a vice, and renders self-defence
almost impossible if, wishing to take your quarry alive, you refrain
from crushing it out of existence.

When the Mantis is in repose its weapons are folded and pressed against
the thorax, and are perfectly inoffensive in appearance. The insect is
apparently praying. But let a victim come within reach, and the attitude
of prayer is promptly abandoned. Suddenly unfolded, the three long
joints of the deadly fore-limbs shoot out their terminal talons, which
strike the victim and drag it backwards between the two saw-blades of
the thighs. The vice closes with a movement like that of the forearm
upon the upper arm, and all is over; crickets, grasshoppers, and even
more powerful insects, once seized in this trap with its four rows of
teeth, are lost irreparably. Their frantic struggles will never release
the hold of this terrible engine of destruction.

The habits of the Mantis cannot be continuously studied in the freedom
of the fields; the insect must be domesticated. There is no difficulty
here; the Mantis is quite indifferent to imprisonment under glass,
provided it is well fed. Offer it a tasty diet, feed it daily, and it
will feel but little regret for its native thickets.

For cages I use a dozen large covers of wire gauze, such as are used in
the larder to protect meat from the flies. Each rests upon a tray full
of sand. A dry tuft of thyme and a flat stone on which the eggs may be
laid later on complete the furnishing of such a dwelling. These cages
are placed in a row on the large table in my entomological laboratory,
where the sun shines on them during the greater part of the day. There