A weapon admirably adapted for piercing and tearing, this hook has sometimes left me with visible remembrances. Caught in turn by the creature which I had just captured, and not having both hands free, I have often been obliged to get a second person to free me from my tenacious captive! To free oneself by violence without disengaging the firmly implanted talons would result in lacerations such as the thorns of a rosebush will produce. None of our insects is so inconvenient to handle. The Mantis digs its knife-blades into your flesh, pierces you with its needles, seizes you as in a vice, and renders self-defence almost impossible if, wishing to take your quarry alive, you refrain from crushing it out of existence.
When the Mantis is in repose its weapons are folded and pressed against the thorax, and are perfectly inoffensive in appearance. The insect is apparently praying. But let a victim come within reach, and the attitude of prayer is promptly abandoned. Suddenly unfolded, the three long joints of the deadly fore-limbs shoot out their terminal talons, which strike the victim and drag it backwards between the two saw-blades of the thighs. The vice closes with a movement like that of the forearm upon the upper arm, and all is over; crickets, grasshoppers, and even more powerful insects, once seized in this trap with its four rows of teeth, are lost irreparably. Their frantic struggles will never release the hold of this terrible engine of destruction.
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.
For cages I use a dozen large covers of wire gauze, such as are used in the larder to protect meat from the flies. Each rests upon a tray full of sand. A dry tuft of thyme and a flat stone on which the eggs may be laid later on complete the furnishing of such a dwelling. These cages are placed in a row on the large table in my entomological laboratory, where the sun shines on them during the greater part of the day. There I install my captives; some singly, some in groups.
It is in the latter half of August that I begin to meet with the adult insect on the faded herbage and the brambles at the roadside. The females, whose bellies are already swollen, are more numerous every day. Their slender companions, on the other hand, are somewhat rare, and I often have some trouble in completing my couples; whose relations will finally be terminated by a tragic consummation. But we will reserve these amenities for a later time, and will consider the females first.
They are tremendous eaters, so that their entertainment, when it lasts for some months is not without difficulties. Their provisions must be renewed every day, for the greater part are disdainfully tasted and thrown aside. On its native bushes I trust the Mantis is more economical. Game is not too abundant, so that she doubtless devours her prey to the last atom; but in my cages it is always at hand. Often, after a few mouthfuls, the insect will drop the juicy morsel without displaying any further interest in it. Such is the ennui of captivity!
To provide them with a luxurious table I have to call in assistants. Two or three of the juvenile unemployed of my neighbourhood, bribed by slices of bread and jam or of melon, search morning and evening on the neighbouring lawns, where they fill their game-bags, little cases made from sections of reeds, with living grasshoppers and crickets. On my own part, I make a daily tour of the paddock, net in hand, with the object of obtaining some choice dish for my guests.
These particular captures are destined to show me just how far the vigour and audacity of the Mantis will lead it. They include the large grey cricket (Pachytylus cinerascens, Fab.), which is larger than the creature which devours it; the white-faced Decticus, armed with powerful mandibles from which it is wise to guard one's fingers; the grotesque Truxalis, wearing a pyramidal mitre on its head; and the Ephippigera of the vineyards, which clashes its cymbals and carries a sabre at the end of its barrel-shaped abdomen. To this assortment of disobliging creatures let us add two horrors: the silky Epeirus, whose disc-shaped scalloped abdomen is as big as a shilling, and the crowned Epeirus, which is horribly hairy and corpulent.
I cannot doubt that the Mantis attacks such adversaries in a state of nature when I see it, under my wire-gauze covers, boldly give battle to whatever is placed before it. Lying in wait among the bushes it must profit by the prizes bestowed upon it by hazard, as in its cage it profits by the wealth of diet due to my generosity. The hunting of such big game as I offer, which is full of danger, must form part of the creature's usual life, though it may be only an occasional pastime, perhaps to the great regret of the Mantis.