153 
From the Wild Flower Path, where the first eggs were planted 
in 1925, to the section of Hydrangeas, west of the Conservatories, 
where the egg mass was found last fall, is a distance of about 
1,500 feet. This may be accepted as a good average distance of 
travel for a female mantis during its one season of active life. 
The eggs, laid simultaneously in a mass of about one hundred, 
are at first enveloped by a sticky substance which quickly hardens 
into a tough silky fiber, forming a protecting cover against tem- 
perature changes until spring and hatching time arrives again. 
Preying indiscriminately upon all sorts of insects, injurious and 
beneficial alike, the Japanese mantis can hardly be considered of 
economic importance. Its good deeds are apt to be offset by 
those that are bad. No criticism, either for or against the insect, 
has reached us from regions where successful colonies have been 
established. It does furnish however an object lesson in nature 
study of exceeding interest, and in this connection it should prove 
of good service in the educational work of the Brooklyn Botanic 
Garden. 
