114 SUBORDER III. GRESSORIA. 



giuia and North Carolina, where it is usually found in the sap- 

 wood of decaying chestnut or pine logs. At Glendale, Oregon, 

 Hebard (1917a, 257) found two colonies "in fir logs only where 

 the wood was soggy and the bark stripped easily. There directly 

 under the bark and in burrowings in the sapwood the series was 

 taken. Individuals eat their way through the sapwood, prefer- 

 ring the places where it is soft, soggy and decayed." Shelford 

 (1907a, 4) states that the Panesthiuse "seem to derive their nour- 

 ishment from the decayed wood in which they burrow." 



Suborder III. GRESSORIA. 



Orthopterous insects having tbe body long and slender; head 

 exserted, often separated from the prothorax by a deep constric- 

 tion ; legs slim, the hind femora not enlarged. The name Gres- 

 soria, proposed by Fieber in 1853 to include the mantids and 

 walking-sticks, is derived from the Latin and means "a walker." 

 Fischer (1853) and Gerstrecker (1863) adopted the name as pro- 

 posed by Fieber. While it has not been much used in America, it 

 affords a valid and easily understood term and is therefore used 

 in this work, as proposed by Fieber, to include the two following 

 families : 



KEY TO FAMILIES OF SUBORDER GRESSORIA. 



a. Front pair of legs raptorial, fitted for grasping; head strongly com- 

 pressed, oblique, mouth inferior; eyes very large; ocelli three, 

 rarely wanting; pronotum usually longer than any other segment; 

 cerci jointed; subgenital plate of males bearing styles. 



Family III. MANTIDS, p. 115. 



aa. Front pair of legs not raptorial, their femora usually slender and 

 curved at base; head usually subquadrate, almost horizontal, mouth 

 sub-inferior; eyes small; ocelli usually wanting; pronotum rarely 

 longer than head; cerci not jointed; styles absent. 



Family IV. PHASMID.E, p. 130. 



The priority or rather inferiority of the Mantidae is well set 

 forth by Scudder (1869b) as follows: "The specialization of 

 their anterior legs marks the higher structure of the Mantidse, but 

 thev show their affinitv to the Blattidre and their inferioritv to 



/ e j 



the Phasmidse in their flattened abdomen, the tendency of the pro- 

 thorax to become broad and flat, the structure of the external 

 genital organs, the position of the head, and the exclusion of the 

 eggs in a single cluster, enclosed in an ootheca. 



"The relation of the Phasmidse to the saltatorial Orthoptera 

 is also shown in the cylindrical body and, to some degree, in the 

 structure of the external genital organs." 



