STRAIGHT-WINGED INSECTS. 169 



there to Goa, Molucca, and Ceylon ; thence he went 

 to Japan, translated the gospel into the Japanese lan- 

 guage, preached, converted, and baptized innumera- 

 ble numbers, often at the imminent peril of his life. 

 By his extraordinary successful efforts, Christianity 

 flourished wherever he went ; in the island of Ormuz, 

 at Cochin, Coulon, Bazain, in the Moluccas, Ceylon, 

 and in all the stations this side of the Ganges. He 

 died in a ship on the Chinese coast, in the year 1552, 

 being only forty-six years old, and was soon afterwards 

 canonized by the Pope of Rome. 



Sparmann, a distinguished traveller in Africa, in- 

 forms us, " that this insect, the Mantis, is worshipped 

 by the Hottentots, as a tutelary divinity, and if it 

 happens to alight on any person, he is at once con- 

 sidered as the peculiar favorite of Heaven, and is 

 looked up to as a saint." 



In what a different light does the Naturalist look 

 upon the Mantis ? This cowardly and cruel insect, 

 which is itself afraid of a little ant, can only be re- 

 garded as in the attitude of those whom the poet de- 

 scribes, as 



"Borrowing the livery of Heaven, to serve the Devil in," 

 if its position may be allowed any practical associa- 

 tion at all. It holds up its anterior tibiae merely for 

 the purpose of catching and destroying flies, cater- 

 pillers, volant-lice and other luckless insects who may 

 come within the reach of its forcep like fore-feet. 

 13 



