MANTIS. 65 



MANTIS. 



149. There is an hemipterous, or half-winged insect of 

 very singular manners and habits called the orator mantis, 

 and sometimes the praying mantis, from the position in 

 which it is usually found. This insect is of considerable 

 size ; the elytra, or wing-cases are of a bright green color, 

 and on each of the wings there is a black spot. 



150. The common posture of the mantis is that of rest- 

 ing on its hind-legs, and erecting its fore-feet, holding 

 them close together, and giving them a quick motion, as 

 if, as some say, it was in the act of praying, Fig. 41. 



Fig. 41. 



Hence among certain people, this creature, has been held 

 in great veneration from time immemorial. It has been 

 supposed to tell fortunes, forewarn of evils, and to do 

 many other things, according to the vividness of super- 

 stitious imaginations. Dr. Moufet, who wrote a work 

 in folio, on insects, in the sixteenth century, very seriously 

 tells us of this insect, that " they are called mantes, that 

 is, fortune-tellers, either because by their coming they do 

 show the spring to be at hand, so Anacreon, the poet 

 sang ; or else they foretel death, or famine, as Cselius, the 

 scholiast of Theocritus writes ; or, lastly, because it al- 

 ways holds up its fore-feet like hands praying, as it were, 

 after the manner of their diviners, who, in that gesture, did 

 pour out their supplications to their gods. So divino a 

 creature is this esteemed, that if a child asks the way to 

 such a place, she will stretch out one of her feet, and show 



