"Mantis" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... know the praying rogue. Mighty devout and mighty cruel; crushes everything he can master, or impales it on his spiny shanks and feeds upon it, like a gluttonous wretch as he is. I have seen the Mantis religiosa on a larger scale than this, now and then. A sacred insect, sir,—sacred to many tribes of men; to the Hottentots, to the Turks, yes, sir, and to the Frenchmen, who call the rascal prie dieu, and believe him to have special charge of children that have ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... many animal myths, and a rich store of beast legends. The most prominent of the animal mythological figures is that of the mantis, around which a great cycle of myths has been formed. He and his wife have many names. Their adopted daughter is the porcupine. In the family history an ichneumon, an elephant, a monkey and an eland all figure. The Bushmen have also solar and lunar myths, and observe and name the stars. Canopus ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various |
