heedless passer-by as she lies in wait.

When the insect to be captured may present some serious resistance, the
Mantis is thus equipped with a pose which terrifies or perplexes,
fascinates or absorbs the prey, while it enables her talons to strike
with greater certainty. Her gins close on a demoralised victim,
incapable of or unready for defence. She freezes the quarry with fear or
amazement by suddenly assuming the attitude of a spectre.

The wings play an important part in this fantastic pose. They are very
wide, green on the outer edge, but colourless and transparent elsewhere.
Numerous nervures, spreading out fan-wise, cross them in the direction
of their length. Others, transversal but finer, cut the first at right
angles, forming with them a multitude of meshes. In the spectral
attitude the wings are outspread and erected in two parallel planes
which are almost in contact, like the wings of butterflies in repose.
Between the two the end of the abdomen rapidly curls and uncurls. From
the rubbing of the belly against the network of nervures proceeds the
species of puffing sound which I have compared to the hissing of an
adder in a posture of defence. To imitate this curious sound it is
enough rapidly to stroke the upper face of an outstretched wing with the
tip of the finger-nail.

In a moment of hunger, after a fast of some days, the large grey
cricket, which is as large as the Mantis or larger, will be entirely
consumed with the exception of the wings, which are too dry. Two hours
are sufficient for the completion of this enormous meal. Such an orgy is
rare. I have witnessed it two or three times, always asking myself where
the gluttonous creature found room for so much food, and how it
contrived to reverse in its own favour the axiom that the content is