Yet these are “not the saints but the tigers of the insect world.” The front pair of limbs are very peculiarly modified—the coxa being greatly elongated, while the strong third joint or femur bears on its curved underside a channel armed on each edge by strong movable spines. Into this groove the stout tibia is capable of closing like the blade of a pen-knife, its sharp, serrated edge being adapted to cut and hold. Thus armed, with head raised upon the much-elongated and semi-erect prothorax, and with the half-opened fore-limbs held outwards in the characteristic devotional attitude, it rests motionless upon the four posterior limbs waiting for prey, or occasionally stalks it with slow and silent movements, finally seizing it with its knife-blades and devouring it. Although apparently not daring to attack ants, these insects destroy great numbers of flies, grasshoppers and caterpillars, and the larger South-American species even attack small frogs, lizards and birds. They are very pugnacious, fencing with their sword-like limbs “like hussars with sabres,” the larger frequently devouring the smaller, and the females the males. The Chinese keep them in bamboo cages, and match them like fighting-cocks.
The common species fixes its somewhat nut-like egg capsules on the stems of plants in September. The young are hatched in early summer, and resemble the adults, but are without wings.
| Praying Mantis (Mantis religiosa). |
The green coloration and shape of the typical mantis are procryptic, serving to conceal the insect alike from its enemies and prey. The passage from leaf to flower simulation is but a step which, without interfering with the protective value of the coloration so far as insectivorous foes are concerned, carries with it the additional advantage of attracting flower-feeding insects within reach of the raptorial limbs. This method of allurement has been perfected in certain tropical species of Mantidae by the development on the prothorax and raptorial limbs of laminate expansions so coloured on the under side as to resemble papilionaceous or other blossoms, to which the likeness is enhanced by a gentle swaying kept up by the insect in imitation of the effect of a lightly blowing breeze. As instances of this may be cited Idalum diabolicum, an African insect, and Gongylus gongyloides, which comes from India. Examples of another species (Empusa eugena) when standing upon the ground deceptively imitate in shape and hue a greenish white anemone tinted at the edges with rose; and Bates records what appears to be a true case of aggressive mimicry practised by a Brazilian species which exactly resembles the white ants it preys upon.
MANTIS-FLY, the name given to neuropterous insects of the family Mantispidae, related to the ant-lions, lace-wing flies, &c., and named from their superficial resemblance to a Mantis owing to the length of the prothorax and the shape and prehensorial nature of the anterior legs. The larva, at first campodeiform, makes its way into the egg-case of a spider or the nest of a wasp to feed upon the eggs or young. Subsequently it changes into a fat grub with short legs. When full grown it spins a silken cocoon in which the transformation into the pupa is effected. The latter escapes from its double case before moulting into the mature insect.
MANTLE, a long flowing cloak without sleeves, worn by either sex. Particularly applied to the long robe worn over the armour by the men-at-arms of the middle ages, the name is still given to the robes of state of kings, peers, and the members of an order of knights. Thus the “electoral mantle” was a robe of office worn by the imperial electors, and the Teutonic knights were known as the orde alborum mantellorum from their white mantles. As an article of women’s dress a mantle now means a loose cloak or cape, of any length, and made of silk, velvet, or other rich material. The word is derived from the Latin mantellum or mantelum, a cloak, and is probably the same as, or another form of, mantelium or mantele, a table-napkin or table-cloth, from manus, hand, and tela, a cloth. A late Latin mantum, from which several Romance languages have taken words (cf. Ital. manto, and Fr. mante), must, as the New English Dictionary points out, be a “back-formation,” and this will explain the diminutive form of the Spanish mantilla. From the old French mantel came the English compounds “mantel-piece,” “mantel-shelf,” for the stone or wood beam which serves as a support for the structure above a fire-place, together with the whole framework, whether of wood, stone, &c., that acts as an ornament of the same (see [Chimneypiece]). The modern French form manteau is used in English chiefly as a dressmaker’s term for a woman’s mantle. “Mantua,” much used in the 18th century for a similar garment, is probably a corruption of manteau, due to silk or other materials coming from the Italian town of that name, and known by the trade name of “mantuas.” The Spanish mantilla is a covering for the head and shoulders of white or black lace or other material, the characteristic head-dress of women in southern and central Spain. It is occasionally seen in the other parts of Spain and Spanish countries, and also in Portugal.
“Mantle” is used in many transferred senses, all with the meaning of “covering,” as in zoology, for an enclosing sac or integument; thus it is applied to the “tunic” or layer of connective-tissue forming the body-wall of ascidians enclosing muscle-fibres, blood-sinuses and nerves (see [Tunicata]). The term is also used for a meshed cap of refractory oxides employed in systems of incandescent lighting (see [Lighting]). The verb is used for the creaming or frothing of liquids and of the suffusing of the skin with blood. In heraldry “mantling,” also known as “panache,” “lambrequin” or “contoise,” is an ornamental appendage to an escutcheon, of flowing drapery, forming a background (see [Heraldry]).