The Mantis: her Nest 



science of by-gone days. An English natural- 

 ist of the sixteenth century, Thomas Moffett, 

 the physician,^ tells us that, if a child 

 lose his way in the country, he will ask 

 the Mantis to put him on his road. The 

 Mantis, adds the author, " will stretch out 

 one of her feet and shew him the right way 

 and seldome or never misse." These charm- 

 ing things are told with adorable simplicity : 



'' Tarn divina censetur bestiola, iit puero 

 interroganti de via, extent o digito rectam 

 monstrat atque raro vel nunquam fallat/' 



Where did the credulous scholar get this 

 pretty story? Not in England, where the 

 Mantis cannot live; not In Provence, where 

 we find no trace of the boyish question. All 

 said, I prefer the splflicating virtues of the 

 tigno to the old naturalist's imaginings. 



* Thomas Moffett, Moufet, or Muffet (1553-1604), au- 

 thor of a posthumous Insectorum sive Minimorur.i 

 Animalium Teatrnm, published in Latin in 1634 and in 

 an English translation, by Edward Topsell, in 1658. Al- 

 though giving credence to too many fabulous reports, 

 Moffett was acknowledged the prince of entomologists 

 prior to the advent of Jan Swamraerdam (1637-1680). — 

 Translator's Note. 



169 



