INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 279 



ing the weaker 1 . This ferocious propensity the Chinese 

 children have, according to Mr. Barrow, employed as a 

 source of barbarous amusement, selling to their comrades 

 bamboo cages containing each a Mantis, which are put 

 together to fight. You will think it singular that both 

 in Europe and Africa these cruel insects have obtained 

 a character for gentleness of disposition, and even sanc- 

 tity. This has arisen from the upright or sitting po- 

 sition, with the fore legs bent, assumed in watching for 

 their prey, which the vulgar have supposed to be a pray- 

 ing posture, and hence adopted the belief that a child or 

 traveller that had lost his road would be guided by tak- 

 ing one of these pious insects in his hands and observing 

 what way it pointed. Mantis fansta, though not as some 

 suppose worshiped by the Hottentots, is yet greatly es- 

 teemed by them, and they regard the person upon whom 

 it alights as highly fortunate 5 . A similar unnatural fero- 

 city is exhibited by Gryllus campestris, of which having 

 put the sexes into a box, I found on examining them 

 that the female had begun to make her meal off her com- 

 panion. The malign aspect of the scorpion leads us to 

 expect from it unnatural cruelty, and its manners fulfill 

 this expectation. Maupertuis put a hundred scorpions 

 together, and a general and murderous battle immedi- 

 ately began. Almost all were massacred in the space of 

 a few days without distinction of age or sex, and de- 

 voured by the survivors. He informs us also that they 

 often devour their own offspring as soon as they are 

 born c . Spiders are equally ferocious in their habits, 

 fighting sanguinary battles, which sometimes end in the 



a Rosel, iv. 96. b Thunberg's Travels, ii. 66. 



c De Geer, vii. 335. 



