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We cannot go much lower than the Bushmen, and among Bushman divine myths is room for the 'swallowing trick' attributed to Cronus by Hesiod. The chief divine character in Bushman myth is the Mantis insect.
"Stop, now, Jackson!" said I, "you are tired." "No, I a'n't, Doctor! No, I a'n't! I'm bound to finish now. But Lord deliver us! look there! one of the Devil's own imps, I b'lieve!" I looked on the little deal stand where I had set the candle, and there stood one of the quaint, evil-looking insects that infest the island, a praying Mantis.
No sooner is my capture, strongly winged, vigorous and alert, introduced into the cage than he is seized, more often than not, by one of the females who no longer have need of his assistance and devoured. Once the ovaries are satisfied the two species of Mantis conceive an antipathy for the male; or rather they regard him merely as a particularly tasty species of game.
The Mantis devours the lovers who have played their parts; the mother Decticus willingly nibbles a thigh of her decrepit husband; the merry Crickets, once the eggs are laid in the ground, indulge in tragic domestic quarrels and with not the least compunction slash open one another's bellies. When the cares of the family are finished, the joys of life are finished likewise.
If I offer her a Mantis, a Bumble-bee, an Anoxia the equivalent of the common Cockchafer and other dishes probably unknown to her race, she accepts all and any, large and small, thin-skinned and horny-skinned, that which goes afoot and that which takes winged flight. She is omnivorous, she preys on everything, down to her own kind, should the occasion offer.
The habits of the Mantis cannot be continuously studied in the freedom of the fields; the insect must be domesticated. There is no difficulty here; the Mantis is quite indifferent to imprisonment under glass, provided it is well fed. Offer it a tasty diet, feed it daily, and it will feel but little regret for its native thickets.
I was able to lift up the dome of wire gauze, tilt it, reverse it, turn it over and reverse it again, without causing the insect to delay her task for a moment. I was able, with my tweezers, to raise the long wings in order to observe rather more closely what was taking place beneath them; the Mantis took absolutely no notice of me.
The smallest insect village has become familiar to me: I know each fruit-branch where the Praying Mantis perches; each bush where the pale Italian Cricket strums amid the calmness of the summer nights; each downy plant scraped by the Anthidium, that maker of cotton bags; each cluster of lilac worked by the Megachile, the Leaf-cutter. The Life of the Grasshopper: chaps. vi. to ix.
The devotional attitude of these insects when watching for their prey their fore legs being elevated and joined in a supplicating manner has given them in English the popular names of "soothsayer," "prophet," and "praying mantis," in French, "prie-Dieu," in Portuguese, "louva-Deos," etc.
The swollen thigh of the cricket might well be a choice "cut" for the Mantis, as a leg of lamb is for us! The attack on the victim begins at the back of the neck or base of the head. While one of the murderous talons holds the quarry gripped by the middle of the body, the other presses the head downwards, so that the articulation between the back and the neck is stretched and opens slightly.
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