“Queen Bess, of famous memory, would alight on my shoulder and take all her food from me half a dozen times a day. When she omitted her visit I knew she had been hunting on her own account. All night long she would keep watch and guard under the mosquito-net. The silk (the thread with which the insect was bound) was fastened to the post of the bed; and woe betide an unfortunate mosquito who fancied for his supper a drop of claret. It was the drollest, the most laughter-moving sensation, to feel one of these trumpeters saluting your nose or forehead, and hear Queen Bess approaching with those long claws, creeping slowly, softly, nearer and nearer; to feel the fine prick of the lancet setting in for a tipple; then you would suppose
a dozen fine needles had been suddenly drawn across the part; then, presto! Bess’s strong, saber-like claws had the jolly trumpeter tucked into her capacious jaws before you could open your eyes to ascertain the state of affairs.
“These creatures very seldom fly far,” continues Mrs. Taylor, “but walk in a most stately and dignified manner. Queen Bess could not bear to be overlooked or slighted(!); and as sure as she saw me bending over the magnifier with an insect, and I thought she was ten yards off, the insect would be incontinently snapped out of my fingers. Many a valuable specimen disappeared in this way. I learned to put her at these times in the sounding-board of an Æolian harp, which was generally placed in the window. Her majesty liked music of this kind amazingly; as the vibration was felt though not heard. I presume she fancied she was serenaded by the singing leaves of the forest. I knew she would have remained there spell-bound until driven forth by hunger, if I did not remove her when I was not afraid of her company.
“As I have begun my ‘experiences,’” continues the same writer, “I will go through with them and confess that I was obliged from circumstances to attach more than accident to her prophetic capacity—her fortune-telling. I have not a grain of superstition to contend against in other matters, having so much reverence for the Creator of all things that I certainly have no fear of anything earthly or spiritually conveyed to the senses. But I was taught by the saddest teacher, Experience, that whenever Queen Bess’s refusal went unheeded I was the sufferer. The first time I ever tried it was to determine a vacillating presentiment I felt about trying a new horse whose reputation was far from good. I placed Queen Bess before me, held up my finger:
“‘Attention! Queen Bess, would you advise me to try that horse?’
“She was standing on her hind legs, her antennæ erect, wings wide spread. I repeated the question. Antennæ fell; wings folded; and down she went, gradually, until her head and long thorax were buried beneath her front legs. I took her advice, and did not venture. Two days later the horse threw his rider and killed him.
“Here was the turning-point. Was I to allow such folly to master me? If French girls do take a Mantis at the junction of three roads, and ask her on which their lover will
come, and watch the insect turning and examining each road with her weird sibyl head,[270]—if French girls commit such follies, should I, a staid American woman, follow their example—putting my faith in the caprices of an insect? Pshaw! I was above such folly. So the next time Queen Bess was consulted a more decided refusal was given; but I disregarded her warning, and most sorely did I repent it. Again she would approve, by standing more erect, if possible, spreading and closing her wings; then all was sunshine with me. So it went for many months. Many others have had the same experience, if they will confess it honestly. I learned to obey the hidden head more carefully than any other, I am sorry to say; and I never, in one single instance, knew her to refuse her opinion; and I never knew it to be wrong in whatever way she announced it.”
This same superstitious woman says that boys and girls try their future expectations by making a mimic chariot, ballasting it with small pebbles, shot, or any such like thing, and harnessing the Mantis in with silk. Upon being freighted she rises immediately, as if to try the weight; if too heavy she will not fly. Lighten the chariot, and she will soar away to a tree or a field; then her owner is to be a lucky boy. If she will not go at all, or only a short distance, and soon come down, misfortune is to be his doom.[271]
Other superstitions among us, with respect to the Mantis are as follows: