Weihaiwei, Oct. 10—On Sunday last I was privileged to witness one of Nature's greatest marvels and, what is more, to display it to some friends I was showing round the garden: this was a praying Mantis actually making her nest (or should I say Ootheca?) on a concrete post—not, as usual hidden away on the rough bark of a tree. Fabre has described the process in detail. but confesses he was never able to see itin the open as it is generally done at night; he kept his Mantes in cages where they made their nests on the wire-gauze covers. Let me try to describe the process shortly. The Mantis, still leaf-green in colour, works with her head down towards the ground and her "tail" pointed up to the sky: from the tail-end protrude two little paddles less than a quarter of an inch long (she is, by the way, nearly three inches long): she never looks at what she is doing, but works assiduously for two hours or more, rapidly and with the utmost mechanical precision: the nest is shaped like a large flattened date-stone, and is at first dull hire but dries out into a dark buff she excretes a creamy liquid and whips it into a foam with her paddles, and it is to be noted that when this foam dries hard on the surface it is impervious to heat and cold on the thermic principle of the "Baked Alaska" pudding: while at work she is performing three different functions; she is (1) making a foamy crust which sets in a few hours, with tile-like slats and a sort of "rooftree" on top (2) laying eggs at correct intervals beneath the crust (3) surrounding the eggs with unbeaten cream to feed the young. Having performed this intricate task she just walks away and leaves it without even looking back at it No human being could perform this task without the use of intricate machinery, but the Mantis does it, so to speak, with her eyes shut "and passes on unheeding.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.