Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 4, 2025
The snail, the pine-cockchafer, the Praying Mantis, the lob-worm, the caterpillar, and other favourite insects, have all been given in alternation and in sufficient quantities. In devouring a brother whose damaged armour lent itself to any easy attack my beetles had not the excuse of hunger. Is it their custom to kill the wounded and to eviscerate such of their fellows as suffer damage?
I have seen the thing with my own eyes, and I have not yet recovered from my surprise. Could this unfortunate creature have fled and saved himself, being thus attacked in the performance of his functions? No. We must conclude that the loves of the Mantis are fully as tragic, perhaps even more so, than those of the spider.
The only Mantis that I was able to observe at the moment of laying her eggs worked upside-down, clinging to the wire near the top of the cover. My presence, my magnifying-glass, my investigations did not disturb her in the least, so absorbed was she in her labours.
The few that remain belong especially to the series of primitive insects, insects exceedingly limited in their industrial powers and subject to very summary metamorphoses, if to any at all. In my district, in the front rank of those entomological anomalies which remind us of the denizens of the old coal-forests, stand the Mantidae, including the Praying Mantis, so curious in habits and structure.
Next morning, the drained Mantis lies upon the ground. The Ants are eagerly devouring the remains. The eminent talents of the Epeirae are displayed to even better purpose in the industrial business of motherhood than in the art of the chase. The silk bag, the nest, in which the Banded Epeira houses her eggs, is a much greater marvel than the bird's nest.
She had grown very fond of, or at least accustomed to, the safety of the mountain' -their word for the higher, tooth-shaped rise in the ridge of granite cliffs -and leaving it now for the uncertainty that lay beyond was not a thought she relished. Kalus made his way up the slope to the Mantis' ledge, paused for breath, then continued.
She holds it by the fore-part, a very judicious precaution, which is favourable to rapid stowage in the warehouse, for then the Mantis' legs stretch backwards, along the axis of the body, instead of folding and projecting sideways, when their resistance would be difficult to overcome in a narrow gallery. The lanky prey dangles beneath the huntress, all limp, lifeless and paralysed.
The Hairy Ammophila, operating on her caterpillar, likewise recoils, but progressively, from one segment to the next. Her deliberate surgery might receive a quasi-explanation if we ascribe it to a certain uniformity. With the Tachytes and the Mantis this paltry argument escapes us.
The most fiery prey is promptly mastered under this avalanche. In vain, the Mantis tries to open her saw-toothed arm-guards; in vain, the Hornet makes play with her dagger; in vain, the Beetle stiffens his legs and arches his back: a fresh wave of threads swoops down and paralyses every effort.
Both represent the Mantis as a priestess delivering oracles, or an ascetic in a mystic ecstasy. The comparison is a matter of antiquity. The worker in the fields is never slow in perceiving analogies; he will always generously supplement the vagueness of the facts. He has seen, on the sun-burned herbage of the meadows, an insect of commanding appearance, drawn up in majestic attitude.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking