248 ENTOMOLOGY FOR MEDICAL OFFICERS 



surfaces of both tibia and femur being sharply serrated. The 

 prey consists of soft insects, such as flies, which are devoured 

 struggling. The eggs are laid in capsules or in spumous 

 masses attached to leaves and twigs. Mantids often show 

 most wonderful deceptive resemblances in colour, and also 

 sometimes in form, to plant-life, such as lichens, leaves in 

 their various phases, and flowers. It is stated in the 

 Cambridge Natural History that in Melbourne a common 

 local species of Mantid is kept on window-blinds to catch 

 flies. It must be remembered, however, that Mantidae do 

 not naturally frequent houses, although they live and breed 

 quite well in captivity. In the tropics young Mantises can 

 easily be bred up from the egg (by any one wishing to 

 domesticate them as fly-catchers) by keeping them in a 

 cage with a rotting banana : the banana in this state 

 nourishes first in the maggot form, and then in the adult 

 form suitable to the tiny Mantises, an unceasing stream of 

 minute Muscoid flies. 



Family Phas?mdce (<l>dixij,a = a. phantom) : Stick-insects. The insects 

 of this family can be told by their wonderful resemblance to pieces 

 of dry stick and thorny stalks, but some, as the females of the leaf- 

 insects (which also belong to this family), exactly simulate leaves. 

 There are some wingless grasshoppers and some bugs {Rhynchotd) which 

 also resemble pieces of stick ; but the former can be discriminated by the 

 fact that the elongation of the thorax is contributed chiefly by ih^protkorax, 

 and the latter are at once recognised by their suctorial beak. The eggs 

 of stick-insects resemble seeds, and are said usually to be scattered ; but 

 there is a species found in Calcutta that lays its eggs in a neat double 

 row on leaves. Some of the stick-insects have wings, others are 

 wingless. These insects feed on vegetation, and therefore have not 

 raptorial legs. Some Phasmida are said to be able to eject, from 

 glands situated in the thorax, an acrid fluid which, if it gets into the eye, 

 may cause blindness. 



Suborder Saltatoria. 



In this suborder the hind legs are enlarged for leaping, and organs 

 for the production and also for the perception of sound are usually 

 present. The suborder includes three families : AcridiidcB, or short- 

 antenna grasshoppers ; Locusiidcs, or long-antenna grasshoppers ; and 

 GryllidcB, or crickets and mole-crickets ; but these families are not so 

 sharply separated from each other as are the families of Cursoria. 



Family Acridiida (i-Kpls = a locust) : Locusts and Short - antenna 

 Grasshoppers. Among the Saltatoria the members of this family are 



