STRUCTURES OF .MAXTIDS. 115 



Family III. MANTID.E. 



THE MAXTIDS OR PRAYIXG IXSECTS. 



This family is composed of elongate, slow moving insects, the 

 most noticeable character of which is the possession of a front 

 pair of legs so modified as to be fitted for grasping and holding 

 their prey. The old name given to the group by Westwood was 

 therefore Raptoria or graspers. The head is short, much wider 

 than long, triangular, vertical, and loosely joined to the thorax in 

 such a manner as to be freely movable; antennae slender, usually 

 filiform, rarely half as long as the body; eyes very large, convex, 

 prominent; ocelli three in number, 23 arranged on a triangular ele- 

 vation just above the insertion of antennae; pronotum in most of 

 our species usually several times longer than broad, with the 

 broadest portion in front of the middle and above the point of 

 attachment of the long fore coxae; both inner and outer wings 

 present (except in the females of OH g onyx and Thesprotia) but 

 often shorter than the abdomen in the females ; the abdomen of 

 that sex often much broader than that of the male, and without 

 a visible ovipositor. Both sexes have a pair of short jointed cerci 

 attached to the sides of the supra-anal plate, while the males have 

 also a pair of much shorter styles near the apex of the subgenital 

 plate. They have the fore legs stout and raptorial, the tibiae term- 

 inating in a long claw and with the long, slender, five-jointed 

 tarsi, when at rest, bent back into a groove on the under side of 

 the spinous femur ; middle and hind pairs of legs long, slender, 

 and fitted for slow motion. As with the other non-saltatorial 

 families, ears and organs for producing sound are absent. 



The members of this family have numerous popular names, the 

 most common of which are the "praying insects" or "soothsayers," 

 given them on account of the position which they take when at 

 rest or when waiting to grasp another insect. The knees are then 

 bent and the front legs held as though in supplication. In the 

 southern States they are often called "mule killers," from the fool- 

 ish belief that the brownish liquor which they give off from the 

 mouth is fatal to mules. This name is, however, also applied to 

 the "whip-scorpion,'' Thcli/pJionis gigniiteus Lucas, a large mem- 

 ber of the order Arachnida, which inhabits that region. Other 

 common names for the mantids are "devil-horses'' and "rear- 

 horses," given them on account of the long, slender thorax which, 



:3 The ocelli are wanting in the females of Thesprotia. 



