130 Cockroaches, Locusts, Grasshoppers, and Crickets 
Grande and Gulf coast regions. All the species are carnivorous, and 
undoubtedly do much good in making away with many noxious insects. In 
1899 some specimens of the common European praying-mantis, Mantis 
religiosa (Fig. 161), were found in and 
near Rochester, N. Y. They had 
probably been accidentally imported 
into this country in nursery stocks from 
France. As this species seems able 
to live farther north than our native 
species, Professor Slingerland is laud¬ 
ably trying to establish it in our coun¬ 
try. He takes care of a colony, and 
is distributing many of the egg-cases 
over the entire country. All the man- 
tids lay their eggs in curious masses 
(Figs. 162 and 163), covered with a 
quickly drying tough mucus. These 
egg-cases are attached to branches and 
plant-stems in the fall, and the young 
hatch in the following summer and 
soon grow (moulting several times 
and developing wings) to full stature, 
which for our most common native 
species, Stagmomantis Carolina , is 
about 2J inches long. 
Slingerland has collected a num¬ 
ber of the old accounts of the Euro¬ 
pean mantis which are of interest as proofs of the light and graceful fancy 
of some of the early author-naturalists. 
The ancient Greeks gave the insects 
the name Mantis , that is, “prophet.” 
Mouffet, writing over five hundred 
years ago, says: “They are called 
Mantes , that is, foretellers, either 
because by their coming (for they first 
of all appear) they do show the spring 
to be at hand, so Anacreon the poet 
sang; or else they foretell death and Fig. i 6 3-—Egg-case of praying-mantis, 
famine, as Ctelius the Scoliast of Mantis rd \ gio ! a ’ cu . 1 °P en > At 0 ,™ 1 ? 
Theocritus has observed; or, lastly, size) 
because it always holds up its fore feet like hands praying as it were, after 
the manner of their Diviners, who in that gesture did pour out their sup- 
Fig. 162.—Egg-cases of the praying- 
mantis, Mantis religiosa. (After 
Slingerland; natural size.) 
