LEAF AND STICK INSECTS. 33 



We seized the mantis and placed it on a twig 

 near by in order to observe it more closely. Durinor 

 this process the mantis stopped devouring the 

 spider, but held it in its right arm-like front leg, 

 just as one v^ould place a book under one's arm. 

 After a pause, it finished its meal and dropped 

 the shell of its victim. 



The chief enemies of the Mantidse are birds, para- 

 sitic wasps and flies. The wasps and flies deposit 

 their eggs in the egg masses of the mantids, parti- 

 cularly in the larger rounded ones. 



Mantids have protective coloration to a more 

 or less degree, for the green mantids are the color 

 of foliage leaves, and the brown ones are not unlike 

 twigs. This is not nearly so striking as one sees 

 \n the Phasmids, or Leaf and Stick Insects. 



It has been recorded that one Indian mantid 

 imitates the form and color of the corolla of a 

 flower in order to entice insect visitors to the 

 "flower" which it promptly seizes. 



The Mantidse are man's insect friends, and it is 

 probable that if numbers could be placed on aphis 

 and scale-infested plants, they would prove very 

 effective. 



Family Phasmidae. 



(Leaf and Stick Insects.) 



(Plate 6.) 



The name "Stick and Leaf" Insects has been 

 applied on account of the striking resemblance 

 which many of the members of this family bear to 

 either sticks or leaves. It is curious, too, that in 



