EATING INSECTS. 155 



as much cowardice, as they had previously showed 

 barbarity ; for the instant the ants were observed the 

 mantes attempted to escape in every direction, evi- 

 dently from instinctive fear of a natural enemy. 

 Afterwards, he tried them with some of the common 

 house-flies, and these they seized with eagerness, and 

 tore to pieces. But, notwithstanding their apparent 

 fondness for flies, they continued to destroy each 

 other through savage wantonness. Rosel despair- 

 ing at last, from their daily decrease, of rearing 

 any to the winged state, separated them into small 

 parcels, in different glasses ; but here, as before, the 

 strongest of each community destroyed the rest. 

 Having, subsequently, received several pairs of the 

 same insects, arrived at their full growth, Rosel, pro- 

 fiting by his former experience, separated them, 

 placing a male and a female together, in different 

 glasses : but they, even in this arrangement, exhibited 

 tfie most ferocious enmity, which neither age nor sex 

 had any effect in softening. No sooner did they ob- 

 serve each other than they threw up their heads, 

 brandished their fore legs, and each waited an attack. 

 They did not remain long in this posture; for the 

 boldest, throwing open his wings with the velocity of 

 lightning, rushed at the other, and tore it in pieces. 

 Rosel compares the onset to a combat between two 

 hussars ; for they dexterously guard and cut with 

 the edge of the fore claws, as the hussars do with 

 their sabres, and sometimes, at a stroke, one of them 

 cleaves the other through, and severs its head from 

 its body, the conqueror always devouring his anta- 

 gonist*. M. Pairet made similar experiments to those 

 of Rosel, by putting a male and female mantis into a 

 glass. The female instantly made an attack upon her 

 companion, seizing him between the sharp points of 

 her claws, with which she soon cut off his head. As 

 * Insecten Belustigung, iv. 96. 



