NOTES ON SOME BORNE AN MAN T IBM. 295 



sistibly reminded of a bull-dog trying to pull down a bull. If 

 the Mantis is hungry it will devour the whole butterfly, leaving 

 only the wings, and perhaps the distal part of the legs. After a 

 meal a Mantis will proceed to clean itself; the teeth of the fore 

 femora and tibiae are picked over by the mandibles, then the fore 

 legs are repeatedly rubbed over the eyes and top of the head, 

 much in the same way as the House-fly, after rubbing its fore 

 tarsi together, passes its legs over its head ; finally the tarsi of 

 the middle pair of legs are cleaned in the following way : the 

 prothorax is turned at an angle to the rest of the body, and one 

 of the front legs hooks up one of the middle legs and carries it 

 to the mouth ; it is held in position there whilst being cleaned 

 by the mandibles, and then released (Fig. 1). A great many 

 Mantida have, as is well known, the inner sides of the fore legs 

 coloured in a conspicuous manner, and these conspicuous mark- 

 ings are displayed whenever the insect is meditating an attack 

 on its prey. The green Hierodulce, however, have the inner 

 side of the fore legs merely a pale yellow, which is certainly not 

 very conspicuous ; still, as already stated, a Hierodula, when a 

 butterfly is introduced into its cage, always throws itself into an 

 attitude that displays these yellow surfaces to best advantage, 

 not, so far as I can see, to terrorize or fascinate its prey, but 

 merely because a sudden and powerful snatch is more readily 

 made from this position than from any other. I am inclined to 

 believe that in such an unconscious "display"-" as this we may 

 see the beginnings of those remarkable attitudes assumed by 

 such floral simulations as the Empusides, which attitudes might 

 well be termed " purposeful displays." t Of course, many species, 

 e. g. Tenodera superstitiosa, do not attitudinize in any way what- 

 ever when excited, and that I am inclined to regard as the 

 primitive habit; but these species have not got the fore legs 

 coloured on the inside even as conspicuously as the Hierodula. 

 The dead-leaf-like form (Deroplatys desiccata) has the inner side 



* By the term " display " I mean the sudden exhibition of brightly 

 coloured or conspicuously marked parts which are concealed during rest. 



| I find that I am anticipated in this supposition, for Dr. Sharp, in an in* 

 teresting paper on Idolum diabroticwm, (Proc. Cambridge Phil. Soc. vol. s. 

 pt. iii.), supposes (p. 180) that " in the past the function of catching in a par- 

 ticular manner has preceded the modifications of structure for doing so*" 



