s the Cigale, but much less famous, as it is voiceless. If
Providence had provided it with cymbals, which are a prime element of
popularity, it would soon have eclipsed the renown of the celebrated
singer, so strange is its shape, and so peculiar its manners. It is
called by the Provencals _lou Prego-Dieu_, the creature which prays to
God. Its official name is the Praying Mantis (_Mantis religiosa_, Lin.).

For once the language of science and the vocabulary of the peasant
agree. Both represent the Mantis as a priestess delivering oracles, or
an ascetic in a mystic ecstasy. The comparison is a matter of antiquity.
The ancient Greeks called the insect [Greek: Mantis], the divine, the
prophet. 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. He has noticed its wide,
delicate wings of green, trailing behind it like long linen veils; he
has seen its fore-limbs, its arms, so to speak, raised towards to the
sky in a gesture of invocation. This was enough: popular imagination
has done the rest; so that since the period of classical antiquity the
bushes have been peopled with priestesses emitting oracles and nuns in
prayer.

Good people, how very far astray your childlike simplicity has led you!
These attitudes of prayer conceal the most atrocious habits; these
supplicating arms are lethal weapons; these fingers tell no rosaries,
but help to exterminate the unfortunate passer-by. It is an exception
that we should never look for in the vegetarian family of the
Orthoptera, but the Mantis lives exclusively upon living prey. It is the
tiger of the peaceful insect peoples; the ogre in ambush which demands a
tribute of living flesh. If it only had sufficient strength its
blood-thirsty appetites, and its horrible perfection of concealment
would make it the terror of the countryside. The _Prego-Dieu_ would
become a Satanic vampire.

Apart from its lethal weapon the Mantis has nothing about it to inspire
apprehension. It does not lack a certain appearance of graciousness,
with its slender body, its elegant waist-line, its tender green
colouring, and its long gauzy wings. No ferocious jaws, opening like
shears; on the contrary, a fine pointed muzzle which seems to be made
for billing and cooing. Thanks to a flexible neck, set freely upon