MANTELET

A moveable parapet, constructed of boards covered with tin, iron, or leather, to serve as a protection to the miners in carrying a sap or a trench towards a besieged place. Mantelets are of various forms, adapted to the peculiar circumstances of the approach. MANTIS. {GT.fjtMVTH; applied by Theocritus (/rf^/. x. 18.) to the cicada.) A Linnaean genus of Orthopterous insects, characterized by having the head exposed, and the body narrow and elongated; the palpi short, and terminating in a point; the ligula quadrifid; the tarsi five-jointed, and the wings simply plaited longitudinally, and not raywise, like a fan. The true mantises, — sometimes called praying insects, on account of the position of the anterior pair of legs, which differ from the rest,—. are found only in tropical and temperate climates: they are diurnal, and remain almost stationary on plants and trees; frequently resembling, in a remarkable degree, their leaves and branches in both the form and colour of the wings and body, and thus they deceive the smaller insects on which they prey. Their eggs are usually enclosed in a capsule formed of some glutinous substance, which hardens by exposure to the air, and is divided internally into several cells. It is curious to trace the correspondence with the vegetable kingdom already noticed in the wings and body continued into the form of the egg-capsules, which in many species closely resemble a seed receptacle of a plant, presenting regularly disposed ridges and angles, or even being bristled with little spines. The female attaches it by an adhesive secretion generally to the stem of a plant. A second group of mantises, characterized by having the anterior legs like the following ones, now form a distinct subgenus. Spectrum, and are generally called spectre insects: they feed exclusively on vegetables, of which they singularly resemble the dried twigs. The progre of entomology has required further subdivisions of both the above groups. MANTl' [s. 723]