EVOLUTION AND THE ORIGIN OF LIFE. 713 



and looking well out before him, with the palpi of his lips slightly 

 vibrating. In this expectant mood he allows himself to be coaxed 

 with the finger, merely staggering back a pace or two, and fixing his 

 goggle-eyes upon the biped who vouchsafes this personal attention. 

 If he lights upon a perpendicular window or wall when in this vein of 

 'religious' ecstasy, he seems to remain for hours together without 

 motion, but all the while he mounts imperceptibly up and up until he 

 reaches the ceiling or roof which limits the chamber in the upward 

 direction. The closest watching does not show how this most gradual 

 of all climbings is accomplished. Not a limb can be seen to move, 

 yet up, minute after minute, he glides. It is while he is in these fits 

 of expectant ecstasy that he seizes his prey. He is essentially a car- 

 nivorous feeder, and pounces stealthily upon any unwary insect that 

 settles within convenient reach, seizing the victim between his upraised 

 legs, and fixing it there between the row of spikelets with which these 

 prehensile limbs are fringed. After a deliberate inspection of the 

 morsel held in this position, he goes to work with his jaws. . . . 



" It was the author's fate upon one auspicious occasion," writes 

 Dr. Mann, " to watch one of these ' religious ' insects engaged in a 

 remarkably appropriate occupation. A dignitary of the Natal Church, 

 who has since made some noise in the world (Bishop Colenso), was, 

 one warm summer evening, with all the windows and doors of his 

 chapel open to the refreshing breeze, preaching by candle-light, when 

 a huge green mantis whizzed into the assembly and perched himself 

 upon the preacher's white neckerchief; and, first folding his arms into 

 the prayerful attitude, he raised his chest and shoulders into rapt at- 

 tention, turning his goggles from side to side, and following respon- 

 sively each motion of the spectacles, that glanced, now on this hand 

 and now on that, from above. He remained fixed in this convenient 

 position until properly dismissed with the rest of the congregation at 

 the close of the sermon, and he did not even then depart at once, being 

 puzzled and staggered, in all probability, by some of the novel doc- 

 trines he had been listening to." 



-»•■»• 



EVOLUTION AND THE ORIGIN OF LIFE. 



By H. CHABLTON BASTIAN, M.D., F. E. S. 



TEAR by year the word " Evolution " becomes diffused more 

 widely through our literature, and the central idea which it 

 implies grows familiar to an ever-increasing multitude of readers. 

 We have witnessed within the last few years a marvelous awakening 

 of interest in the minds of the public generally to questions of science, 

 and it so happens that a discussion of the doctrine of Evolution has 



