THE ORATOR MANTIS. 2C9 



found in Africa and Asia, as well as in all the 

 warmer parts of Europe. Its thorax is smooth, and 

 wing-cases of a bright and unspotted green. 



The Mantis religiosa is supposed to be merely a 

 variety of this species, differing from the rest in 

 having a somewhat keel-shaped thorax. This, how- 

 ever, seems to be the insect most generally known 

 of the two. It has its name of over-religious, or su- 

 perstitious, from its perpetually resting on its hind- 

 legs, and erecting the fore-paws close together, with 

 a quick motion, as if in the action of praying. The 

 country people, in various parts of the continent, con- 

 sider it almost as sacred, and would not on any ac- 

 count injure it, " It is so divine a creature, (savs 

 the translator of Mouffet) " that if a child has lost 

 its way, and enquires of the Mantis, it will point, 

 out the right path with its paw." Dr. Smith, how- 

 ever, informs us, in his Tour on the Continent, that 

 he received an account of this Mantis that seemed 

 to savour little of divinity. A gentleman caught a 

 male and female, and put them together in a glass 

 vessel. The female, which in this, as in most other 

 insects, is the largest, after a while devoured first the 

 head and upper parts of her companion, and after- 

 wards all the remainder of the body. 



The young of this Mantis are preserved in the 

 egg-state in a kind of oblong bag, of a thick spungy 

 substance ; this bag is imbricated on the outside, and 

 fastened lengthwise to the branch of some plant. As 

 the eggs ripen they are protruded through the thick 

 substance of the bag, and the larvce, which are 

 about half an inch in length, burst from them. 

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