MANTID.E — SOOTHSAYERS, ETC. 91 



Madame Merian informs us of a similar opinion among the 

 Indians of Surinam, who believed these insects grew like 

 leaves upon the trees, and when they were mature, loosened 

 themselves and crawled, or flew away. 



We find also in th*^ works of Piso an account of insects 

 becomin.GT plants. Speaking of the Mantis, that author 

 says: "Those little animals change into a green and tender 

 plant, which is of two hands breadth. The feet are fixed 

 into the ground first; from these, when necessary humidity 

 is attracted, roots grow out, and strike into the ground ; 

 thus they change by degrees, and in a short time become a 

 perfect plant. Sometimes only the lower part takes the 

 nature and form of a plant, while the upper part remains as 

 before, living and movable ; after some time the animal is 

 gradually converted into a plant. In this Xature seems to 

 operate in a circle, by a continual retrograde motion."^ 



There may be, however, much truth in this remarkable 

 metamorphosis; for, that an insect may strike root into the 

 earth, and, from the co-operation of heat and moisture, con- 

 genial to vegetation, produce a plant of the cryptogamic 

 kind, cannot be disputed. Westwood states that he has seen 

 a species of Clavaria, both of the undivided and branched 

 kinds, which had sprung from insects, and were four times 

 larger than the insects themselves. In truth, it cannot 

 then be denied that Piso may not have seen a plant of a 

 proportionate magnitude which had likewise grown out of 

 a Mantis. The pupae of bees, wasps, and cicadas, have 

 been known to become the nidus of a plant, to throw up 

 stems from the front part of the head, and change in every 

 respect into a vegetable, and still retain the shell and ex- 

 terior appearance of the parent insect at the root. Speci- 

 mens of these vegetated anituals are frequently brought 

 from the West Indies. Mr. Drury had a beetle in the per- 

 fect state, from every part of which small stalks and fibers 

 sprouted forth ; they were entirely different from the tufts 

 of hair that are observed in a few Coleopterous insects, such 

 as the Buprestis fascicularius of the Cape of Good Hope, 

 and were certainly a vegetable production.^ Mr. Atwood, 



1 Donovan seems to think that Ovid's account of the Transforma- 

 tion of Phaeton's Sisters into trees, had its origin in some such idea 

 as this. — Insects of China, p. 18, note. See also Chamb. Journal, xi. 

 367, 2d Ser. 



2 Donovan's Ins. of China, p. 19. 



