Dr. Pagenstecher has given an account[173] of the development of _Mantis religiosa_, from which it would appear that the statements of Fischer and others as to the number of moults are erroneous, owing to the earliest stages not having been observed. When the young _Mantis_ emerges from the egg it bears little resemblance to the future Insect, but looks more like a tiny pupa; the front legs, that will afterwards become so remarkable, are short and not different from the others, and the head is in a curious mummy-like state, with the mouth-parts undeveloped and is inflexed on the breast: there are, he says, nine abdominal segments. The first ecdysis soon takes place and the creature is thereafter recognisable as a young _Mantis_. Pagenstecher's specimens at first would only eat Aphididae, but at a later stage of the {248}development they devoured other Insects greedily: the number of ecdyses is seven or eight. The ocelli appear for the first time when the wing rudiments do so; the number of joints in the antennae increases at each moult. Dr. Pagenstecher considers that this Insect undergoes its chief metamorphosis immediately after leaving the egg, the earlier condition existing apparently to fit the Insect for escaping from the egg-case. In the immature stage of the Mantidae the alar organs appear (Fig. 139) as adjuncts of the sides of the meso- and meta-notum, projecting backwards and very deeply furrowed and ribbed in a wing-like manner. According to Pagenstecher, this wing-like appearance only commences in the fifth stadium, but he has not given particulars of the conditions of these parts in the preceding instars. According to de Saussure[174] the wings of the females of some species remain permanently in this undeveloped or nymphal state. [Illustration: FIG. 139.—Tegmina (_t_) and wings (_w_) of immature _Mantis_.] [Illustration: FIG. 140.—_Iris oratoria_, female. South Europe. Natural size.]