A DESPERATE CONFLICT. 267 



hinder limbs, and raising and clasping together their hideous 

 arms, again assumed the attitude of prayer that attitude by 

 which we had been so cruelly deceived. 



We knew them now (the wretches!) for the Mantes the 

 Praying Mantes* of all carnivorous insects the most strange 

 and frightful even when of insect size, objects of dread and 

 superstition as insect monsters, oh ! most horrible ! That 

 attitude of seeming devotion was only one of riveted attention 

 to a new object of attack in the unfortunate glow-worm, 

 whose soft bulky body, revealed in her own self-betraying 

 light, seemed to tempt more strongly than our own shrunken 

 carcass, the devouring appetite of these cruel gormandizers. 

 One of them began to climb the bank whereon the helpless 

 lamp-bearer reposed, but was speedily pulled backwards by 

 his jealous comrade. Then began a determined combat, each 

 monster throwing up his head, and brandishing his murderous 

 weapons, preparatory to mutual attack. Using, sabre-like, 

 their tremendous arms alternately to guard and cut, both 

 combatants maintained for awhile a nearly equal contest. 

 Then, as if resolved to end it, both threw open their rustling 

 leaf-like wings, and darted like lightning on each other. A 

 deadly struggle followed, till at last the weakest fell a headless 

 trunk but not lifeless body, for it was speedily again erect ; 

 the arms again waved, and shook, and grasped, in the desperate 



* The Mantes oratorio,, the Prie Dieu, the Pater noster, the Loma Z>ios of Southern 

 Europe. 



