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.
Crickets of all kinds, butterflies, bees, large flies of many species, and other insects of moderate size: such is the prey that we habitually find in the embrace of the murderous arms of the Mantis.

But in my cages I have never known the audacious huntress to recoil before any other insect.