4:4: Bulletin 185. 



As none of our American Mantids breed normally north of southern 

 New Jersey and Pennsylvania, we were naturally much interested in 

 Mr. Atwood's discovery, and supposing, of course, that it was a case 

 where our common southern Mantid {Stagmomantis Carolina) had 

 finally succeeded in establishing itself in I^ew York, we published a 

 brief note to this effect in Entomological ]^ews for December, 1899. 

 We have raised this southern species and another from Kew Mexico 

 here at the insectary from eggs received from these localities, and 

 Glover states that the former " has been successfully raised as far 

 north as the Hudson river, by bringing the egg-cases from the 

 South." Several esffif-cases were found fastened to trees the next 

 autumn, but after that they entirely disappeared. It is said that 

 the eggs prol)ably could not endure our northern winters. As none 

 of the Mantids seen near Rochester in 1899 were preserved, we 

 awaited the season of 1900 with much interest to see if the insect 

 had survived the winter and to definitely determine just what spe- 

 cies of Mantid it was. And we were not disappointed. 



On March 13th, 1900, Mr. Atwood sent us two of the egg-cases 

 which a little girl had found up under the water-table of a dwelling 

 house. However, all the eggs they contained were dead and shriv- 

 eled, indicatino^ that the insect had not been able to survive the 

 winter. But a month later came several more egg-cases, and most 

 of them were evidently alive ; most of these were found attached 

 to grass stems near the ground. We placed these in a breeding 

 cage, and on May 21:th, 1900, we were delighted to find that young 

 Mantids were hatching from the egg-masses, thus proving that the 

 insect had established itself and w^as breeding freely near Bochester. 

 July 7th Mr. Atwood sent us a young Mantid about an inch long 

 that he had captured near his liome, and by July 21st several of 

 ours in the cages had attained over half tlieir growth, but a majority 

 had succumbed to the cannibalistic habits of their brothers and 

 sisters and to other vicissitudes of an insect's life. By the middle 

 of August our few remaining specimens had become full grown, 

 and Mr. Atwood sent us a female which, by August 29th, had laid 

 an es^or-case in our ca^o. He wrote tliat the territorv of the insect 

 seems to be enlarging, as it had been found across the river over 

 Irondequoit, near Rochester. 



