120 MANTIS. 



tainment with that afforded by fighting cocks arid 

 quails: (for it is to this insect or one closely allied 

 to it that I imagine the following passage in Mr, 

 Barrow's account of China to allude.) " They 

 have even extended their enquiries after fighting 

 animals into the insect tribe, and have discovered 

 a species of Gryllus or Locust that will attack 

 each other with such ferocity as seldom to quit 

 their hold without bringing away at the same 

 time a limb of their antagonist. These little crea- 

 tures are fed and kept apart in bamboo cages, 

 and the custom of making them devour each other 

 is so common that, during the summer months, 

 scarcely a boy is to be seen without his cage of 

 Grasshoppers." Barrow's Travels in China, p. 159. 



The Mantis precaria is a native of many parts 

 of Africa, and is the supposed idol of the Hotten- 

 tots, which those superstitious people are reported 

 to hold in the highest veneration, the person on 

 whom the adored insect happens to light being 

 considered as favoured by the distinction of a 

 celestial visitant, and regarded ever after in the 

 light of a saint. This species is of the same gene- 

 ral size and shape with the M. oratoria, and is of 

 a beautiful green colour, with the thorax ciliated 

 or spined on each side, and the upper wings each 

 marked in the middle by a semitransparent spot. 



Of all the Mantes perhaps the most singular 

 in its appearance is the Mantis gongylodes of 

 Linnaeus, which, from its thin limbs, and the gro- 

 tesque form of its body, especially in its dried 



