584 



THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



prothorax- are raised perpendicularly from the body, and the exterior legs are folded in 

 front — greatly resembles a person praying. Hence, in France it is called Le Pre- 

 cheur, or Le Prie Dieu ; the Turk says it points to Mecca; and several African tribes 

 pay it religious observances. In reality, however, its ferocity is great; and the 

 stronger, preying on the weaker of their own species, unmercifully cut them to pieces. 

 Thus, two Mantes which Sir E. Tennent enclosed in a box were both found dead a 

 few hours after, severed limb from limb in their deadly fight. Within the space of a 

 week, Burmeister saw a Mantis devour daily some dozens of flies, and occasionally 

 large grasshoppers and young frogs, consuming, now and then, lizards three times its 

 own length, as well as many large fat caterpillars. Hence it may be judged what 

 ravages these strangely formed creatures must cause among all weaker beings which 

 incautiously approach them, and that, far from being the saints, they are, in reality, 

 the tigers of the insect world. 



Though the great majority of luminous animals are marine, frequently lighting up 

 the breaking wave with millions of moving atoms, or spreading over the beach like a 

 sheet of fire, yet several insects are also endowed with the same wonderful property. 

 Our own fire-flies afford a charming spectacle. But this brilliancy is far surpassed by 

 that of the phosphorescent beetles of the torrid zone. Thus the Cocujas of South 

 America glows with such intensity, that if eight or ten of them are put into a vial the 

 light will be sufficiently good to admit of writing by it. In Cuba is a magnificent 

 fire -fly, which ladies often enclose in gauze nets, and wear as ornaments in the ball- 

 room. When the Spaniards first visited Mexico, the wandering sparks of fire-flies 

 were once mistaken for an army approaching with matchlocks; and in the West Indies 

 the English, under Cavendish and Dudley, seeing an innumerable body of these insects, 

 fancied that the Spaniards were advancing upon them in force, and fled to the vessels 

 from which they had just landed. 



The insect tribes hold a kind of universal empire over the earth and its inhabit- 

 ants, for nothing that possesses, or has possessed, life is secure from their attacks. 

 To secure himself from their attacks, man must wage a perpetual warfare, and main- 

 tain an ever-wakeful vigilance, for, though destroyed by thousands, new legions ever 

 make their appearance, and to repose after a victory is equivalent to a defeat. In our 

 temperate zone, where a higher cultivation of the ground tends to keep down the 

 number of the lower animals, their persecutions, though frequently annoying, may 

 still be borne with patience ; but in the tropical regions, where man is generally either 

 too indolent or not suflSciently numerous to set bounds to their increase, the insects 

 constitute one of the great plagues of life. We will first speak of some of these 

 insect plagues : 



Along the low river-banks, and everywhere on hot and swampy grounds, the blood- 

 thirsty mosquitoes appear periodically in countless multitudes, the dread of all who 

 live in warm climates. Scarcely has the sun descended below the horizon, when these 

 insects arise from the morass to disturb the rest of man and to render existence a tor- 

 ment. Not satisfied with piercing the flesh with their sharp proboscis, which at the 

 same time forms a kind of syphon through which the blood flows, these malignant 

 gnats, of which there are many species, inject a poison into the wound, which causes 

 inflammation, and prolongs the pain. 



