Cockroaches, Locusts, Grasshoppers, and Crickets 1 29 



pennsylvanica (Fig! 160), with long, light-colored wing-covers, and wings 

 which extend considerably beyond the tips of the abdomen. The margin 

 of the pronotum is light, the disk being dark, and the front margins 

 (lateral when folded) of the wing-covers are lighter than the discal 

 parts. The body is an inch long and rather narrow and slender. This 

 species is common in the woods and sometimes comes into houses in 

 summer-time. 



In the southern states and those of the Mississippi Valley a large insect 

 may be not infrequently seen standing motionless in a corner of a window, 

 in a striking attitude. This attitude may be taken as one of hopeful prayer, 

 as those who gave the name praying-mantis to the insect seem to have taken 

 it, or one of self-confident readiness to do violent work with those upraised, 

 sharply spined, and very willing fore feet. This is the way the house-flies 

 rightfully take the mantis's attitude. Watch an unwary bluebottle crawl or 

 buzz into the fatal corner. Blundering buzziness is finished for that blue- 



FIG. 161. The praying mantis, Mantis religiosa. (After Slingerland; natural size.) 



bottle; and the first course of a square meal has come to him who waits 

 and watches. Other names, as rearhorse, camel-cricket, and soothsayer, 

 have been given the mantis, all suggested by the attitude and curious body 

 make-up of the creature. The prothorax is long and stem-like, the head 

 broader than long, with protuberant eyes, and the fore legs are not used 

 for locomotion, but are large, strongly spined, and fitted for seizing and hold- 

 ing the prey. The wings are short and broad and usually rather leaf-like 

 in coloration and texture, the whole insect when at rest resembling somewhat 

 a part of the plant on which the mantis ordinarily stands. The window-corner 

 is a new and unnatural locale for the insects, but the abundance of prey here 

 in summer-time makes it a good feeding-ground. 



The family Mantidae includes less than a score of species in this country, 

 all of them southern in range, and only a few occurring north of the Rio 



