246 
Psyche 
[June-September 
These consisted of a cylinder of metallic hardware cloth, 10cm high 
and with a diameter very slightly larger than that of a plastic petri 
dish. The petri dish fitted snugly inside the cylinder as a base, and a 
cover was placed over this, enclosing the bottom of the cylinder 
between the two. The top was bound with masking tape, and a 
second petri dish cover was used as a lid. Screened cages cannot, of 
course, be used until the mantid has transferred to a diet of crickets. 
For the final molt, when the mantid hangs from its exoskeleton until 
the legs harden, a 20cm high cage was needed. Rather than build 
new cages for this very short period, two cages were joined together, 
by removing the base of the upper one and attaching it to the top of 
the lower one with masking tape. After ecdysis, the double cage was 
disassembled and the adult mantid was returned to its original cage. 
Feeding procedures were exactly the same for P. chlorophaea as 
those described for A. falcata (above). However, either P. chloro- 
phaea attacks smaller prey, or domestic crickets are not preferred 
prey. It was necessary to feed several small crickets daily, and to 
remove any uneaten prey at the end of each day. We raised P. 
chlorophaea to study its life history. It needs more care, more space 
and more complex cages than A. falcata. In addition, its mating 
behavior is similar to that of Mantis religiosa (Roeder, 1935), where 
males frequently do not survive to inseminate more than one female. 
The lepidoptera rearing cage (above) can be modified so that live 
Drosophila can be fed, if the cylinder is made of transparent acetate 
sheeting. With the following modifications we found that they made 
excellent cages for raising web-building spiders, particularly those 
with horizontal webs. (See Figure 2.) The acetate cylinder was made 
to fit tightly into a plastic petri dish base. An inner lid was made by 
cutting a circle of 5cm diameter out of a second petri dish, using an 
electric soldering iron. A petri dish cover was used as an outer lid. 
The outer lid, which was plugged with a cotton ball to keep the cage 
humid, could be raised for feeding the spiders, without disturbing 
web foundation lines. To give the spiders web attachment points, 
four cylindrical toothpicks were pushed through the acetate until 
they almost met in a cross, 2cm from the top and 2cm from the 
bottom of the cage. 
We initially kept web building spiders in glass vials with snap caps 
(Robinson & Robinson, 1976a). These are not ideal, as the web is 
often attached to the cap, and the spider cannot be fed without the 
web being damaged. Later we discovered the 1 inch diameter 
transparent plastic storage tubes, supplied by Forestry Supplies Inc. 
