PRAYING MANTES, SOOTHSAYERS, etc. —Family 
MANTIDAE. 
In this family the body is elongate, the head free, transverse, 
the face vertical; the front legs are raptorial, the coxae free, 
elongate, the femora and tibiae enlarged and spined for seizing 
insect prey; the middle and hind legs are slender. 
The Mantidae differ from all other Orthoptera in being ex- 
clusively carnivorous, capturing and feeding upon living insects; 
in consequence, they are esteemed as highly useful and beneficial 
creatures. 
While they can run rapidly and do so when alarmed, their 
customary movements when in the presence of their prey are very 
deliberate; stealing along until within striking distance, the fore 
leg is suddenly extended to seize the victim which is impaled upon 
the sharp spines of the thigh and shank, carried to the mouth, and 
eaten while still struggling to escape. The females are cannibalis- 
tic, and are prone to devour their mates after their usefulness as 
such is over, a habit which is paralleled among spiders. 
The eggs are laid in a bulky mass (ootheca) attached to twigs 
of trees or stems of grasses. The masses have a braided appear- 
ance externally, due to the arrangement of the mucous covering 
at the time of oviposition which hardens into a tough protective 
envelope on exposure to the air. The winter is spent in the 
egg stage, the young hatch in spring, and when they emerge, seek 
plant lice and other soft-bodied insects for their first food. 
The young Mantis on hatching is said to hang suspended by a 
pair of silken threads attached to the cerci until after its first molt, 
and to differ remarkably in proportions from the adult, the 
peculiar fore legs not yet having assumed their characteristic 
form. 
This family of insects is apparently not naturally present in 
New England. One native species has been recorded from Rhode 
Island (see Stagmomantis Carolina) but its occurrence there is 
probably to be regarded as accidental. Several attempts have 
been made to introduce two foreign species, acclimated in other 
parts of the country, but did not meet with entire success. It is 
to be hoped that efforts to introduce these beneficial Orthoptera 
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