The commonest species in our gardens is the “Thick shouldered green mantis,” _Orthodera ministralis_ better known under the name of _Orthodera prasina_, but as it was described many years before under the first name, the latter has become a synonym. It is about 1½ inches in length, somewhat stout and thickset, the front portion of the neck-like prothorax as wide as the head, fitting up close against it, and narrower where it joins the mesothorax. It has well developed wings and flies very well, but it usually remains immovable and alert, resting on a leaf as green as its own bright coat, its treacherous deadly fore-legs are raised, ready to lash out and seize any incautious moth or butterfly that comes within reach, and it will often secure one larger than itself. It ranges from Tasmania round to North-west Australia, and has been recorded from New Zealand, into which place it could have been easily introduced from Australia with foliage plants. [Illustration: Fig. 17. =Figs.= =17= and =18=.--Australian Mantidae. 17. _Tenodera australasiae_ (Leach), the long-winged mantis. 18. _Archimantis latistylus_ (Serv.), the short-winged mantis. (Original photo. Burton.)] The Genus _Archimantis_ contains five species described from Australia, of which _Archimantis latistylus_ is the commonest species about Sydney. It measures 4 inches in length, is furnished with large well developed wings, and varies in colour from dull green to brownish yellow; the female is smaller, with more thickened body and shorter wings. The fore-wings, or more properly elytra, are brown, rounded at the tips, often marked in the centre with a dark spot; the hind wings are semitransparent. It hides among the dull-coloured foliage of the Leptospermum and Melaleuca bushes, which assimilate well with its own uniform tint. This species will be found, figured, in colours in McCoy’s “Zoology of Victoria, Decade xiii.” _Archimantis montrosa_, a slightly larger species, comes from Victoria River, North Australia; the type was taken by Elsey, naturalist to the Gregory Exploring Expedition in 1856. _A. armatus_, a smaller brown species, from the same district, has the prothorax curiously spined on the outer margins, and the under-surface covered with coarse tubercles.