Identifier: zologytextbook00cock (find matches)
Title: Zöology; a textbook for colleges and universities
Year: 1920 (1920s)
Authors: Cockerell, Theodore D. A. (Theodore Dru Alison), 1866-1948
Subjects: Zoology
Publisher: Yonkers-on-Hudson, N. Y., World book company
Contributing Library: MBLWHOI Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MBLWHOI Library

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
sailors used to tell how, in certain tropicalcountries, the leaves fell off the trees, but crawled backto their places. Such apparently gratuitous lies werein fact founded on observation, as is the case with manyother strange tales of travelers. Rather similar to the phasmids, but structurallyvery distinct, are the Mantidse or soothsayers. In thisgroup the front legs are curiously modified, and areheld, as it were, in an attitude of prayer. Consequentlythe common species of the Mediterranean region The praying (Mantis religiosa) has been regarded as a sacred animal,and is known as the praying mantis. As a matterof fact, its apparently pious attitude merely indicatesreadiness to spring upon its prey, as a cat springs upona mouse, and the voracious creature should properly becalled the preying mantis. The mantids are so pe-culiar, that one might well suppose them to be of rela-tively recent origin, but the evidence of the fossilsindicates that they are extremely ancient. Like the mantis
Text Appearing After Image:
From Brehms ThierlebenFIG. 114. A praying mantis, its egg mass and recently hatched young. GRASSHOPPERS AND THEIR RELATIVES 319 cockroaches, they place the wings over the abdomenwhen at rest. 6. The cockroaches or Blattidae constitute a large cockroachesgroup of insects, most abundant in the tropics. Onespecies is extremely common in houses in England,where it is known as the black beetle, although it isdark brown, and is not a beetle. In Central Americasome of the cockroaches are over 3 inches long andfully if inches broad. These are repulsive creatures,but there is a small, delicate green species, often foundin bunches of bananas, which is rather attractive.Superficially, cockroaches seem to have no head, thatmember being hidden under the large thoracic plate.The broad wings, with* very numerous veins, are foldedover one another across the back, presenting a flatsurface from above. The hind legs are not adapted forjumping, nor are there any musical organs. The long,slender antennae

Note About Images