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Grey cricket, Decticus, Epeirus or Truxalis, sooner or later all are harpooned, held motionless between the saw-edges of the arms, and deliciously crunched at leisure. The process deserves a detailed description. At the sight of a great cricket, which thoughtlessly approaches along the wire-work of the cover, the Mantis, shaken by a convulsive start, suddenly assumes a most terrifying posture.
Once more the spectral pose was seen, the hissing of the wings, and the terrible gesture of the talons outstretched and raised above the head. The females could not have looked more terrible before a grey cricket or a Decticus. Without any motives that I could see, two neighbours suddenly arose in the attitude of conflict.
The same condition is maintained for three days longer. On the fifth day, the creeping paralysis leaves nothing free but the antennae waving to and fro and the abdomen throbbing and lifting up the ovipositor. On the sixth, the Grasshopper begins to turn brown; she is dead. Except that the vestige of life is more persistent, the case is the same as that of the Decticus.
Finally she withdrew her oviduct, and effaced, though without particular care, the traces of the hole in which her eggs were deposited, rested for a moment, walked away, and repeated the operation; not once, but many times, first here, then there, all over the area at her disposal. Her behaviour was precisely the same as that of the Decticus, except that her movements were more deliberate.
What would the Decticus do with nutritive reserves, seeing that he is near his end, now that the nuptial season has arrived? Delivered from the necessity of saving for the future, he has only to spend in gaiety the few days left to him; he has only to adorn himself for the supreme festival.
Davis, J.B., on the capacity of the skull in various races of men; on the beards of the Polynesians. Death's Head Sphinx. Death-rate higher in towns than in rural districts. Death-tick. De Candolle, Alph., on a case of inherited power of moving the scalp. Declensions, origin of. Decoration in birds. Decticus.
In attacking the Truxalis and the Ephippigera, less dangerous game than the grey cricket and the Decticus, the spectral pose is less imposing and of shorter duration. It is often enough to throw forward the talons; this is so in the case of the Epeirus, which is seized by the middle of the body, without a thought of its venomous claws.
Under the shining head of the Decticus, behind the long face of the cricket, who is to say what is passing? No sign of emotion can reveal itself upon these immovable masks. Yet it seems certain that the threatened creature is aware of its danger.
Landois, H., gnats attracted by sound; on the production of sound by the Cicadae; on the stridulating organ of the crickets; on Decticus; on the stridulating organs of the Acridiidae; stridulating apparatus, in Orthoptera; on the stridulation of Necrophorus; on the stridulant organ of Cerambyx heros; on the stridulant organ of Geotrupes; on the stridulating organs in the Cleoptera; on the ticking of Anobium.
All those parts, in fact, which lie immediately under the translucid skin are covered with a layer of pigment which can be turned into murexide and is identical in nature with the white powder of the adipose lace. Biological chemistry can hardly offer a simpler and more striking experiment than this analysis of the Decticus' finery.
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