396 The Animal-Lore of ShaJcspeare’s Time . 
the desert mountaines, and to let the Christians alone: and if they 
obeyed me not, I called and adjured the. fowles of the heaven, the 
beasts of the field, and all the tempests, to scatter, destroy, and con¬ 
sume their bodies. And for this purpose I tooke a quantitie of these 
locusts, and made this admonition to them, which were present, in the 
name of themselves, and of those -which were absent: and so I let 
them goe, and gave them libertie. ... In the meanwhile, arose a great 
storm and thunder towards the sea, which lasted three hours, with an 
exceeding great shower and tempest, which filled all the rivers, and 
when the water ceased, it was a dreadful thing to behold the dead 
locusts, which we measured to be above two fathomes high upon the 
bankes of the rivers in such wise, that on the next morning there was 
not one of them found alive upon the ground/* ( Purchas , vol. ii. 
p. 1047). 
As this ceremony was so successful, the worthy priest 
found himself applied to by the neighbouring countries 
when their fields were threatened in like manner, but he 
was probably too cautious to risk a failure by frequent 
repetition of the experiment. 
The weird-looking creature, the Praying Mantis, is 
mentioned by Muffett in his Theater of In- 
Mantis. (p. 982). This author seems in all 
seriousness disposed to give the insect credit for the 
devotion which its eccentric attitude suggests. He 
writes, of locusts :— 
“ I have seen only three kindes very rare, i.e. Italian, Greek, and 
Affrican : they are called mantes, foretellers , either because by their 
coming (for they first of all appear) they do shew the spring to he at 
hand, so Anacreon the poet sang; or else they foretell dearth and 
famine, as Cselius the scholiast of Theocritus have observed. Or 
lastly, because it alwaies holds up its forefeet like hands praying as it 
were, after the manner of their diviners, who in that gesture did pour 
out their supplications to their gods. Of this Italian mantis (whose 
figure we do here represent), Rondeletius makes mention in Ms hook 
De Piscibus, in these words: It hath a long breast, slender, covered 
with a hood, the head plain, the eyes bloudy, of a sufficient bignesse, 
the cornicle short, it hath six feet like the locust, hut the foremost 
thicker and longer than the other, the which for the most part she 
holds up together (praying-wise), it is commonly called with us 
