The Mantis: her Hunting 



tive ! To try to free yourself by force, with- 

 out first disengaging the claws implanted in 

 your flesh, would expose you to scratches 

 similar to those produced by the thorns of 

 a rose-tree. None of our insects is so 

 troublesome to handle. The Mantis claws 

 you with her pruning-hooks, pricks you with 

 her spikes, seizes you in her vice and makes 

 self-defence almost impossible if, wishing 

 to keep your prize alive, you refrain from 

 giving the pinch of the thumb that would 

 put an end to the struggle by crushing the 

 creature. 



When at rest, the trap is folded and 

 pressed back against the chest and looks 

 quite harmless. There you have the insect 

 praying. But, should a victim pass, the atti- 

 tude of prayer is dropped abruptly. Sud- 

 denly unfolded, the three long sections of 

 the machine throw to a distance their term- 

 inal grapnel, which harpoons the prey and, 

 in returning, draws it back between the two 

 saws. The vice closes with a movement like 

 that of the fore-arm and the upper arm; and 

 all is over : Locusts, Grasshoppers and others 

 even more powerful, once caught in the 

 mechanism with its four rows of teeth, are 

 irretrievably lost. Neither their desperate 

 117 



HOW CRICKETS SING 



Camera Shows They Used Wings 

 Instead of Legs Ih Pro- 

 ducing Their Notes 



Crickets sing with their wings and 

 not with their legs. And katydids 

 also. You do not believe it. Since you 

 were a little child you have been tojd 

 that crickets made their shrill and 

 chirping sounds by rubbing their hind 

 legs together or scraping their 

 legs against thoir wings or sides, or 

 I something like that. At any rate they 

 ! made what might be called foot-notes 

 or sang by leg power. 



Insect students have settled the 

 question. They say that crickets, like 

 nearly all other varieties of singing 

 insects have "stringulating organs" at 

 the base of their wings. Rubbing 

 rgans together they produce 

 vibrations and the wings, which are 

 hollow, serve as sounding boards and 

 the volume of the sound. The 

 stringulating organs look like two 

 small folded wings having saw-like 

 edges. The insect rasps these two 

 saw edges together. 



The matter was settled by a cam- 

 era. It was not easy for the photog- 

 rapher to obtain a sitting from a 

 cricket and to catch him in the act o 

 singing. He would only sing in th< 

 dark and the camera would only taki 

 him in the light. So the scientist* 

 with the camera posed a little cricket 

 in the light where the camera was 

 focused on him. Then he set off an 

 instrument which made a noise s< 

 much like a cricket that the cricko 

 thought it was one. 



Whether the cricket thought he was 

 being serenaded or challenged o 

 mocked by another of his kind doe 

 not matter. The cricket answered 

 with his well known song and the 

 shutter opened and closed before th 

 iieker than the wink of an ey 

 and the secret of the cricket was rea 

 on the sensitized plate when it was de 

 veloped. 



That was how it came to be know: 

 that the cricket does not eing b, 

 scraping hi* legs together, or b 

 scraping hi-s wings together, but b 

 rasping those special instrument 

 called stringulating organs. 



