The Life of the Grasshopper 



whom the adult Mantis dotes? A prolonged 

 and minute search places me in possession of 

 what I want. This time the bill of fare will 

 consist of a few recently hatched Acridians. 

 Young as they are, they have already reached 

 the size of my charges. Will the little 

 Mantes fancy these? They do not fancy 

 them : at the sight of their tiny prey they run 

 away dismayed. 



Then what do you want? What other 

 game do you find on your native brushwood? 

 I can see nothing. Can you have some 

 special infants' food, vegetarian perhaps? 

 Let us even try the improbable. The very 

 tenderest bit of the heart of a lettuce is de- 

 clined. So are the different sorts of grass 

 which I tax my ingenuity in varying; so are 

 the drops of honey which I place on spikes 

 of lavender. All my endeavours come to 

 nothing; and my captives die of inanition. 



My failure has its lessons. It seems to 

 point to a transition diet which I have not 

 been able to discover. Long ago, the larvse 

 of the Oil-beetles gave me a great deal of 

 trouble, before I knew that they want as their 

 first food the egg of the Bee whose store of 

 honey they will afterwards consume. Per- 

 haps the young Mantes also in the begin- 



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