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It is also the most important, for it presides over the insect's weapons, over the two powerful arms, toothed like saws and ending in harpoons. The other two, divided from the first by the whole length of the prothorax, each face the origin of the corresponding legs; consequently they are very near each other.
Cousin Benedict was occupied in studying with a magnifying glass an articulate which he had at last found on board a simple orthopter, whose head disappeared under the prothorax; an insect with flat elytrums, with round abdomen, with rather long wings, which belonged to the family of the roaches, and to the species of American cockroaches.
The proper position for the process of moulting has now been assumed and the proper stability assured. The first thing to do is to burst the old skin. Behind the corselet, under the pointed roof of the prothorax, a series of pulsations is produced by alternate inflation and deflation.
In the best known species, Mantis religiosa, the head is triangular, the eyes large, the prothorax very long, and the body narrowed and lengthened; the anterior feet are armed with hooks and spines, and the shanks are capable of being doubled up on the under side of the thighs.
When confronted with the Acorn-weevil, she seizes the insect by the snout, which is immensely long and shaped like a pipe-stem, and plants her sting in its body to the rear of the prothorax, between the first and second pair of legs. It is needless to insist: the spoiler of the Cleoni has taught us enough about this mode of operation and its results.
It will be the starting-point of a chapter which perhaps will give us some fresh sidelights upon the history of the hypermetamorphosis. The larva is nearly 2 millimetres long. Coming out of a good-sized egg, it is endowed with greater vigour than the larvæ of the Sitares and Oil-beetles. The head is large, rounded, slightly wider than the prothorax and of a rather brighter red.
The thoracic segments are of equal length and increase gradually in width from front to back. The prothorax is wider than the head, but is narrower in front than at the base and is slightly rounded at the sides. The legs are of medium length and fairly robust, ending in a long, powerful, sharp and very mobile claw.
TETTIGARCTA TOMENTOSA, pl. 4, fig. 4, and 5 its pupa. Of a brownish ash colour, the hairs on upper part of body short and deep brown, on the sides and under parts long and grey; prothorax varied with black, in front, two large patches covered with grey hairs, mixed with longer; elytra spotted and varied with brown, wings clear, somewhat ferruginous at the base. Expanse of wings 3 inches 4 lines.
My notes recall an Ephippiger who, pricked in the prothorax away from the median line, retained the use of her six limbs without being able to walk or climb for lack of co-ordination in her movements. A singular awkwardness left her wavering between going back and going forward, between turning to the right and turning to the left. Some are smitten with semiparalysis.
The outward structure of the Praying Mantis would of itself be enough to teach us the arrangement of the nerve-centres which the Tachytes has to injure in order to paralyse its victim, which is destined to be devoured alive but harmless. A narrow and very long prothorax divides the front pair of legs from the two hinder pairs.
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