-71- 
eyes* Actually, in covering over the doorwa 3 r the mantis manages somehow 
to leave its eyes above the surface until it has packed the sand all around 
them. When it withdraws to the bottom of the burrow the hole remaining is 
precisely eye-size. It can insert its eyes in this space and all of him 
that is visible are these two ovals exactly the color of the surrounding 
sand. Whenever we break in the covering to reveal the entire opening the 
mantis comes up and quietly fills it in again. 
So far we have been unable to entice him out of his house for anything. 
Today we placed a small green mantis in the pen. The big one either did 
not see it or did not care. Tom guided the small one around until it was 
on the sand mound surrounding the hole. The large mantis had disappeared 
by then. The green one poised on the edge of the hole for some time — he 
was not too well — and I expected the big fellow to come up at any moment 
and dispatch him. After av/hile the sand gradually crumbled from beneath the 
feet of the small one and he fell into the hole. In five minutes his head 
appeared again, and he rested in the mouth of this oversize den as though 
he owned it. Once or twice he disappeared and 1 thought th8.t the big one 
had snatched him from behind. But his head always reappeared again after 
a short space of time. I had other things to do and could not remain longer 
to watch — this had taken perhaps an hour. I'^en I returned in the course of 
twenty minutes the big mantis was up in the hole — methodically filling 
in the door. And that was the end of that. 
