Rail — The Biology of Stagmomantis Carolina. 41 



The eggs of the walking-stick (Phasmidae) are not 

 systematically deposited but are discharged at random, 

 remaining wherever they may chance to fall. The eggs 

 resemble seeds and are dropped singly, each one en- 

 veloped in a capsnle which is provided with a lid which 

 is pushed off by the emerging insect. 



In the locusts (Acrididae) we see the mode of ovipo- 

 sition differing widely from that of both the cockroach 

 and the walking-stick. With her hard gonapophyses 

 she excavates a hole in the ground wherein she deposits 

 her eggs, together with a quantity of fluid. This hard- 

 ens and protects the eggs, and hence in function corre- 

 sponds to some of the capsules made by other insects 

 of this group. It may have been from this primitive 

 way of protecting the eggs that the present complex 

 way of egg-case-making in our mantis evolved. 



Some of the true locusts (Locustidae), katy-dids, etc., 

 deposit their ova in twigs or stems of plants, arranging 

 them in a very neat and compact manner, while others 

 deposit their eggs in the earth. 



The cricket (Gryllidae), which has a subterranean 

 existence, deposits from two hundred to four hundred 

 eggs. The mother watches over them very carefully 

 until they hatch after three or four weeks; she then 

 supplies the young with food until their first moult, 

 after which they disperse. 



For a good many years it w^as quite unknown just 

 how our species makes its egg-case. It was thought by 

 some naturalists that the eggs were deposited and the 

 whole mass then covered by a substance which hardened 

 over them, the whole process resembling the oviposition 

 of the grasshopper. Others thought that the whole mass 

 w^as formed inside the body of the mother mantis and 

 then expelled entire, similar to the method of the Blat- 

 tidae. 



Sharp (loc. cit., p. 246) says: "The eggs of Mantidae 

 are deposited in a very singular manner. The female 



