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Mr. William T. Davis, Vice-President of the Staten Island 
Institute of Arts and Sciences, and also a life member of the 
Botanic Garden, has called our attention to one factor which is 
likely to work against an increase in considerable numbers and 
that is the gray squirrel. These animals are known to search for 
the egg clusters, not because they somewhat resemble hickory nuts, 
but because they like the egg flavor. In the New York Zoological 
Park, and in other places where squirrels are plentiful, attempts 
to start Mantis colonies have failed. Again referring to Mr. 
Davis, our best authority on the subject, we learn from an article 
published by him (Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological So- 
ciety, Vol. XIII, No. 4, October 1918) that the first record of P. 
sinensis in this country came from Meehan’s Nursery, German- 
town, Pa., in 1896, indicating the accidental introduction of egg 
masses on nursery stock imported from Japan. Since then the 
insect has been reported repeatedly from numerous places in 
Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but nowhere as common as near 
the original source; for in 1902 Philip Laurent, of Philadelphia, 
gathered about half a barrel of egg masses near his home at Mt. 
Feuhehtie 
The newly hatched mantids, in late May or early June, are 
covered with a thin delicate pellicle which is soon cast off and 
eaten. Still clinging to the egg cluster, a hundred or more in 
number, they look like an animated mass of little bits of string. 
Almost at once they display their voracity by attacking each 
other. Then, dispersing among the neighboring vegetation, they 
begin their stealthy attacks upon other insects, at first plant lice 
and the like, but gaining strength with growth, bees, flies, wasps, 
beetles, caterpillars, grasshoppers—everything within their reach 
and power is greedily seized. They disdain all dead food and 
never make chase for the living, but warily, patiently, and motion- 
less they watch. till a victim is near enough to be grasped with a 
rapid thrust of the spiny front legs. Molting four or five times, 
they do not attain maturity until September and October. The 
wings, also not fully developed until then, are strong enough to 
support the slender males on short flights, but not the heavier, 
distended bodies of the females. Consequently any extension in 
the range of the species under natural conditions must be slow. 
