A New Beneficial Insect in America. 45 



It now remained to learn what species of Mantid had thus estab- 

 lished itself in New York, 200 or 300 miles further north than any 

 such insect lived in this country. 



Its Identification. 



Specimens of the adults were sent to an expert, Mr. Scudder, for 

 determination, and the following reply came on September 20tli, 

 1900. " The specimen you sent was very perplexing. I never for 

 a moment thought it was anything but an American species, and all 

 the tables for generic determination in the MantiniiB separated at 

 one point the Old World from the Kew World forms en niasse. 

 Everything in the New World tables brought it down haltingly to 

 Stagmomantis. and yet it was no Stagmomantis^ so I turned just 

 now to the Old World series, and there at once I brouglit it down 

 to Mantis^ and, on comparing specimens, to Mantis religiosa, the 

 common European form." 



Its Disteibution. 



It is common in southern Europe, especially in France, and its 

 northern limit is from 47 to 49 degrees north latitude or near 

 Havre, Freiburg and Vienna ; it also occurs in Asia as far as Hin- 

 dustan and Java and in Africa as far south as Zanzibar. It thus 

 has a very wide distribution in the Old World, but has never before 

 been reported in the New World. 



Here it is apparently yet confined to a small area near Rochester, 

 including the towns of Charlotte, Summerville and Ii'ondequoit, 

 where it has become quite common. 



And Miss H. F. Samain, Principal of Public School No. 11, in 

 Pochester, writes concerning some specimens she sent us recently : 

 " I found them crawling by the side of an unused road just south of 

 the Driving Park in the northwest part of our city. Others were 

 found in the field which the road bordered, crawling up tlie grass 

 stalks. One was found sunning itself in the middle of the day on 

 the sidewalk near No. 34 school. The children who live in that 

 vicinity told me that they had seen them come out of the grass onto 

 the* sidewalks and iron-work of the school-house. A great many 

 were taken from that field a year ago, and there does not seem to be 



