80 SOCIAL LIFE IN THE INSECT WORLD 



in the manger donkeys grow quarrelsome, although 

 usually so pacific. My guests might well, in a season 

 of dearth, have lost their tempers and begun to fight 

 one another ; but I was careful to keep the cages weP 

 provided with crickets, which were renewed twice a day. 

 If civil war broke out famine could not be urged in 

 excuse. 



At the outset matters did not go badly. The company 

 lived in peace, each Mantis pouncing upon and eating 

 whatever came her way^ without interfering with her 

 neighbours. But this period of concord was of brief 

 duration. The bellies of the insects grew fuller : the 

 eggs ripened in their ovaries : the time of courtship and 

 the laying season was approaching. Then a kind of 

 jealous rage seized the females, although no male wai> 

 present to arouse such feminine rivalry. The swelling of 

 the ovaries perverted my flock, and infected them with an 

 insane desire to devour one another. There were threats, 

 horrid encounters, and cannibal feasts. Once more the 

 spectral pose was seen, the hissing of the wings, and the 

 terrible gesture of the talons outstretched and raised 

 above the head. The females could not have looked 

 more terrible before a grey cricket or a Decticus. With- 

 out any motives that I could see, two neighbours 

 suddenly arose in the attitude of conflict. They turned 

 their heads to the right and the left, provoking one 

 another, insulting one another. The poiif ! pouf! of 

 the wings rubbed by the abdomen sounded the charge. 

 Although the duel was to terminate at the first scratch, 

 without any more serious consequence, the murderous 

 talons, at first folded, open like the leaves of a book, and 

 are extended laterally to protect the long waist and abdo- 



