With the exception of some curious little neuroptera (_Mantispa_), which can be easily distinguished by their lace-like wings, the members of this family cannot be confused with other groups. The long slender prothorax, supporting a very flexible narrow head, forms an elongate neck, to which are attached, well in front, the formidable spined fore legs, which are seldom used as means of progression, but as weapons of offence to capture other insects upon which they prey, for they are tigers of the insect world, lying in wait, perfectly motionless, with their colouration adapted to the foliage among which they hunt. The two apical portions of the thorax, and slender body, which in the ordinary type is covered with two pairs of wings, the first pair narrow like that of a grasshopper and the hind pair fan-shaped, with the two pairs of slender legs, are orthopterous; while the front portion, consisting of the narrow head turned down in front into a pointed mouth, with large projecting eyes, and thread-like antennae, show its carnivorous habits. The female deposits her eggs upon the twigs or bark of trees in an almond-shaped mass, consisting of regular rows of elongate eggs piled above each other, with the tips all pointing outward, and which are covered with an enveloping coat of a sticky brown secretion that, as it hardens in the sun, becomes dry and papery. When the baby mantids emerge from the eggs they are attached to them by two slender threads fastened to the anal appendages (cerci); they hang head downward, like a mass of tiny squirming caterpillars, until they cast their first larval skin, when they fall to the ground, soft, wingless, little stick-like creatures, ready to hunt for themselves. These egg masses are very conspicuous objects in the bush and orchard, and are often received from my correspondents with enquiries as to what they are, and whether they should be destroyed. As each is the home of some hundreds of little creatures that destroy thousands of smaller injurious insects, they should never be disturbed by the gardener.