2 SO ORTHOPTERA CHAP. 



firmly in the formidable trap formed by the anterior leg, and is 

 thus brought near the mouth. The Mantis usually commences 

 its feast by taking off some portions of the head of its wretched 

 victim, and displays an absolute indifference to its struggling or 

 kicking ; the mandibles having seized a portion of the food, the 

 legs holding it move away, thus leaving a fragment in the mouth. 

 Portions only of a captured Insect are consumed, much being cast 

 away ; and Mr. Potts states that he has seen one of these voracious 

 creatures kill and devour parts of fourteen small flies within a 

 very brief space of time. This voracity and waste of animal 

 food is very remarkable when we recollect that many Insects 

 have such perfect powers of assimilation that during their whole 

 period of growth they only consume a mass of food and that 

 vegetable but little larger in size than the bulk they themselves 

 attain. This fact is well known in the case of Bruchus, Caryo- 

 Tiorus, and other seed-feeding Insects. Burmeister has stated good 

 grounds for believing that some of the larger Mantidae do not 

 confine themselves to Insect diet, but attack and devour small 

 Vertebrates. 1 He has given a circumstantial account of a case at 

 Buenos Ayres, where a small bird was secured by the wingless 

 female of a large Mantis, which had commenced devouring its 

 head when the observer took possession of the creature and its 

 booty. Dubois states 2 that when a decapitated, but living, 

 Mantis was suspending itself to a roll of drapery by its four 

 posterior legs, a person could detach with the fingers the left 

 anterior leg (of the four) and the right posterior, or conversely 

 the left posterior and right anterior, without the interference 

 producing any action on the part of the creature ; but if one 

 of the other legs was also interfered with, which would neces- 

 sarily have changed the position of the body, then immediately 

 one of the two unoccupied legs was placed by the creature in a 

 proper position to assure its stability. This reflex action alto- 

 gether resembled in appearance a conscious action, and was as 

 effectually performed. 



The combination in Mantidae of voracious and destructive 

 instincts with helpless and inert attitudes gives rise to the idea that 

 these latter are adopted for the purpose of deceiving the living 

 prey and of thus more easily obtaining the means of subsistence. 



1 Berlin, ent. Zeitschr. viii. 1864, p. 234. 



2 Ann. Soc. Linn. Lyon, xi. 1893, p. 205. 



