
weer 



_ these Orthoptera in places destitute of all vegetation, and where 
290 THE INSECT WORLD. 
Jou, is nothing better than a patient watcher and pitiless destroyer. 
The Mantis religiosa (Fig. 302), common enough in the south 
of France, comes as far north as the environs of Fontain- 
bleau. The Mantis oratoria, rather small, is less commonly met 
with. 
These elegant insects are remarkable for their long slim bodies, 
their large wings, and their colours, which are generally very 
bright. In some species their green or yellowish elytra look so | 
exactly like the leaves of trees that one can hardly help taking | 
them for such. 
The Mantis lays its eggs at the end of summer, in rounded, | 
very fragile shells, attached to the branches of trees; they do 
not hatch till the following summer. The larve undergo several 
successive moultings. Nothing equals the ferocity of these | 
Orthoptera. If two of them are shut up together, they engage | 
in a desperate combat; they deal each other blows with their.| 
front legs, and do not leave off fencing till the stronger of the | 
two has succeeded in eating off the other’s head. From their very | 
birth, the larve attack each other. The male being smaller than 
the female, is often its victim. | 
Kirby tells us that in China the children procure them as | 
in France they do cockchafers, and shut them up in bamboo | 
cages to enjoy the exciting spectacle of their combats. | 
The Acanthops, a species of this family, inhabits the Brazils. | 
Akin to the Mantis are the Hremiaphilas, which live in the | 
deserts of Africa and Arabia. They drag themselves gently along | 
on the ground, and as they are of the same colour as the sand on | 
which they are found, it is very difficult to distinguish them when 
at rest. The traveller, Lefebvre, relates that he always found 
there were no other sorts of insects which could have served them 
for food; it is therefore probable that they live on microscopic 
insects. 
The Empusa, which forms another genus of Mantide, has | 
the antennz indented like a comb in the males, thread-like in 
the females. The Empusa gongylodes, which inhabits Africa, has 
cuffs to its arms and flounces to its robe. 
The genus Blepharis, to which belongs the Blepharis mendica, 


