THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 171 



with a white, frothy, spittle-like substance which soon hardens and 

 becomes brittle upon exposure to the air. Mr. Parker Earle informs 

 me that he has witnessed the operation, and that he judges it to re- 

 quire about an hour, the eggs being "pumped out, and the entire 

 mass elaborately shaped, with a line instinct of construction as the 

 process continues." 



Between the 10th and 20th of June these eggs hatch into comical- 

 looking little Mantes, in all respects resembling their parent, with the 

 exception that they have no wings; for, with the grasshoppers, crick- 

 ets, katydids, walking-sticks and roaches, etc., etc., which belong to 

 the same order {Orthoptera), they do not undergo any sudden transi- 

 tions Irom the masked larva, to the quiescent pupa, and thence to the 

 winged imago state, as do most other insects. 



When the young first issue from the egg-mass, they are yet, as 

 with the young of most other Orthopterous insects, enveloped in a 

 fine skin which confines their members and prevents free motion. In 

 this condition they look not unlike some of our leaf-hoppers (Tetti- 

 gonice,) but as soon as they extricate themselves they begin to show 

 their unfeeling and voracious disposition by attacking and devouring 

 each other. Indeed, those sentimentalists who believe that the worm 

 crushed under foot suffers as much as the man who breaks an arm or 

 a leg, would do well to study the habits of these Mantes. They are 

 so void of all feeling that, the female being the strongest and most 

 voracious, the male in making his advances, has to risk his life very 

 many times, and at last only succeeds in grasping her by slyly and 

 suddenly surprising her ; and even then he frequently gets remorse- 

 lessly devoured. I have seen a female, decapitated, and with her 

 body partly eaten, slip away from another that was devouring her, 

 and for over an hour afterwards fight as tenaciously and with as much 

 nonchalance as though nothing had happened. 



The eggs may be readily transported from one place to another, 

 and the insect can thus be easily colonized. Mr. Jordon in this way has 

 caused them to increase very much in his home nursery in St. Louis, 

 though he finds some difficulty in protecting the eggs during the 

 winter from the attacks of birds. He considers that as long as he can 

 keep the Mantes sufficiently numerous he will never be troubled 

 with noxious insects. 



We know with what fear the hawk is regarded by the great ma- 

 jority of small birds, but that at the same time the common house 

 martin defies and even tantalizes and drives it off. In like manner 

 this Mantis which must be the dread of most flies, is yet defied by a 

 certain class of them, belonging to the same ( Tachina) family, as that 

 described and figured on page 111, for I have found no less than nine 

 maggots in the body of a living female Mantis, which must have 

 hatched from eggs that had been deposited on her body by one of 

 these flies. 



