134 omensetter: i 



stock. That its mind sometimes runs in material channels 

 may be gleaned from the report of an observer on a typical 

 menu : " One Sunday a green mantis ate three grasshoppers, 

 each seven-eighths of an inch l<Mig, a daddy long lej^s, and 

 then tackled another mantis, and I was obliged to interfere 

 between them." A Japanese species has of late years made 

 its appearance about Philadelphia, and is said to be becom- 

 ing numert)us. A native species, Slai^tnoniantis Carolina, is 

 common throughout the southern United States, extending as 

 far north as New Jersey. 



Some insects have been noted for a peculiar method of 

 calling, commanding, or giving an alarm. Observation has 

 been made of a noise made by the neuters or soldiers among 

 the white ants, by which they keep the laborers, who answer 

 It by a hiss, upon the alert and to their work. This noise, 

 which is produced by striking any substance with their man- 

 dibles, has been described by Smeathman as a small, vibrat- 

 ing sound, rather quicker and shriller than the ticking of a 

 watch. It could be distinguished, he says, at the distance of 

 three or four feet, and continued for a minute at a time with 

 ver>' short intervals. When any one walks in a solitary 

 grove, where the covered ways of these insects abound, they 

 give the alarm by a loud hissing, which is heard at every step. \ 

 " When house crickets are out," says Mr. White, " and run- 

 ning about in a room at night, if surprised by a candle, they 

 give two or three shrill notes, as it were for a signal to their 

 followers, that they may escape to their crannies and lurking- 

 holes to avoid danger." 



Many beetles when captured manifest their alarm by the 

 emission of a shrill, sibilant or creaking sound — likened by 

 some to the chirping of young birds — produced by rubbing 

 their elytra with the extremity of their abdomen. This is the 

 case with some of the chafers and others of the lamellicorn 

 beetles. The l)urying beetle antl many other Coleoptera pro- 

 duce a similar m>ise by the sami.' means. When this noise is 

 made the movement of the abdomen may be perceived, and if 



