The Mantis: her Nest 



science of by-gone days. An English natural- 

 ist of the sixteenth century, Thomas Moffett, 

 the physician, 1 tells us that, if a child 

 lose his way in the country, he will ask 

 the Mantis to put him on his road. The 

 Mantis, adds the author, " will stretch out 

 one of her feet and shew him the right way 

 and seldome or never misse." These charm- 

 ing things are told with adorable simplicity: 



" Tarn divina censetur bestiola, ut puero 

 interroganti de via, extento digito rectam 

 monstrat atque raro vel nunquam fallat." 



Where did the credulous scholar get this 

 pretty story? Not in England, where the 

 Mantis cannot live ; not in Provence, where 

 we find no trace of the boyish question. All 

 said, I prefer the spiflicating virtues of the 

 tigno to the old naturalist's imaginings. 



Thomas Moffett, Moufet, or Muffet (1553-1604), au- 

 thor of a posthumous Insectorum sive Minimorum 

 Animalium Teatrum, published in Latin in 1634 and in 

 an English translation, by Edward Topsell, in 1658. Al- 

 though giving credence to too many fabulous reports, 

 Moffett was acknowledged the prince of entomologists 

 prior to the advent of Jan Swammerdam (1637-1680). 

 Translator's Note. 



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