THE MANTIS: HER HATCHING

Too Long; Didn't Read

The eggs of the Praying Mantis usually hatch in bright sunshine, at about ten o’clock on a mid-June morning. The median band or exit-zone is the only portion of the nest that affords an outlet to the youngsters. From under each scale of that zone we see slowly appearing a blunt, transparent protuberance, followed by two large black specks, which are the eyes. Softly the new-born grub slips under the thin plate and half-releases itself. Is it the little Mantis in his larval form, so nearly allied to that of the adult? Not yet. It is a transition organism. The head is opalescent, blunt, swollen, with palpitations caused by the flow of the blood. The rest is tinted reddish-yellow. It is quite easy to distinguish, under a general overall, the large black eyes clouded by the veil that covers them, the mouth-parts flattened against the chest, the legs plastered to the body from front to back. Altogether, with the exception of the very obvious legs, the whole thing, with its big blunt head, its eyes, its delicate abdominal segmentation and its boatlike shape, reminds us somewhat of the first state of the Cicadæ on leaving the egg, a state which is pictured exactly by a tiny, finless fish.