A QUEER PET. 529 



with, a tumbler in one hand and a palmetto fan in the other, I 

 made him my captive. I might have taken him with my fingers 

 easily ; but, though I do not believe, as the negroes do, that the bite 

 of the devil's-riding-horse is " bad luck," or that this insect will 

 " curse with blindness " by 

 spitting in its captor's eyes 

 if it can, I have a horror of 

 the creature, and I prefer not 

 to touch it. 



By way of introduction to 

 those who do not know the FlG " 1 - MAOT » REWGI08 ^ 



Mantis religiosa, I would explain that he is classed with the Or- 

 thoptera, whereby is declared his kinship with the crickets, locusts, 

 roaches, and grasshoppers ; yet he is not cheery like the cricket, 

 nor destructive like the locust, nor loathsome like the roach, nor 

 vivacious like the 



" Gay little vaulter in the sunny grass." 



Nor does he resemble any one of these in personal appearance. 

 Entomologically he is described in an array of big words which say 

 but little for the particular specimen that amused my midsum- 

 mer idleness. It is not as an entymologist, therefore, that I would 

 portray my queer pet. 



To the non-entomological intelligence, then, my captive ap- 

 peared a pale, yellow-green, miniature demon, about two inches 

 in length, the most of whose body, so to speak, had run to neck. 

 About midway of this " neck " — or pro-thorax, to quote the ento- 

 mologists — were attached a pair of "arms" — antennce — with 

 joints like " elbows." Below these joints the arms were divided 

 and serrated, like the claws of a crab. Atop of the long neck the 

 head was set transversely, like the upper portion of the letter T. 

 An extremely flexible joint united this peculiar head to the rigid 

 neck, and enabled the creature to look in all directions, out of a 

 pair of extraordinarily intelligent and watchful eyes, that pro- 

 truded from each " end " of the head. The mouth was very large, 

 but, in spite of the powerful jaws, there was no expression of 

 ferocitv in that rather formidable feature. In normal condition 

 the body proper, which is perceptibly shorter than the neck — so 

 called — should be furnished with four slender, jointed legs, about 

 an inch in extended length ; but when under glass my prisoner 

 was seen to be minus the right hind-leg. This deficiency, how- 

 ever, did not appear to interfere in the least with his activity, for 

 he scrambled about his glass cell with a frantic speed that proved 

 five legs as good as six in his case ; of course, the two raptorial 

 " arms " count as legs when it comes to locomotion. 



By way of beginning my study of his character, I dangled a 

 shoe-button first on one side and then on the other of his prison- 



vol. xxxvii. — 38 



