My captive painted for me one of the loveliest pictures I have seen.
One morning she refused to stalk her bees. She seemed uneasy and edged away from them. I decided to free the bees, but I reckoned without my praying lady mantis. She was out as soon as I opened the door.
With great lacy wings outspread she rose above me, over an apple-tree, higher again over a silver stringybark, until I lost her as she flew over a tall yellow-box.
As I watched the beautiful, rapidly moving wings beating their way up into the sunshine, with a deep-blue sky to set them off, I rejoiced in her freedom.
Such a long flight I had not before witnessed yet Nature has provided her with wings for just such flights as this. How had I dared to pinion them!
Often in the dusk I have seen the mantis’s evening flight as she hurried softly past me like some great moth; but the winging-off of the released one was so unexpected, so much more beautiful. I vow I will not cage another.
I will have to wait my chance, as I have done before, to see her at work on her egg-casket in the bush. One may often find the caskets sticking to twigs or trunks of small shrubs or trees. One of these placed in a box provides convincing proof of Nature’s prodigality when dealing with the perpetuation of a species . . .
As the queer little babies wriggle and squirm their way into the big world they seem very weak and helpless; but once free of the first skin often shed during their birth struggles they soon become strong and active, perfect little mantids, but without the wings of adults. These do not appear until they are grown-up. In the meantime they will outgrow and shed other coats.
When but a day old my mantids, born in captivity from an egg capsule taken in the forest, were able to run about freely in their glass cage and to feed on aphids which I stripped from the rose bushes. It was delightful to see each diminutive creature stalk and capture an aphis in the finished manner of its parents. Holding its tiny prey under a seizing-leg it would run off to a corner like a chicken to enjoy its booty without interference from its numerous brothers and sisters.
Numerous! The adjective is inadequate to describe the crowd of little mantids that covered the lid of a box four inches square – all from one casket. As one looked at the moving mass one realised the truth of the poet’s words: ‘Of fifty seeds she brings but one to bear,’ Nature is taking no chances. She banks on numbers.
The mother mantis is larger than her mate – or mates perhaps I should say, for she has been convicted of dining upon discarded lovers. In captivity, where the poor male has little chance of escape, she has been known to devour no fewer than seven husbands.
Doubtless an unappeased appetite lay at the root of these dark deeds. In normal circumstances so finished a huntress could easily stock her larder without stopping to such shady practices.
In spite of her merciless ways, the praying mantis is a beautiful creature. I am glad to have entertained her in the garden and in the house.
I am glad, too, to remember that she is clever enough to be ready when opportunity knocks at her door, both in the matter of capturing a meal and in securing her freedom.
Chapter 13
COME BACK IX WATTLE TIME
‘Once again war has brought home to the Australian soldier his deep affection for the wattles of his land. Once again sprigs of blossom enclosed in his letters are whispering: “Come back. It’s wattle time.”’
January 1942–
EDITH SURVEYS the damage to her garden with pursed lips and a frown. Clumps of thick yellow clay pile up on the grass between the apple trees. She must have let a sigh escape, for James looks up from where he is digging, sweat sticking his shirt to his back. She smiles brightly, trying to be encouraging. It is not a task that she wants to take over.
‘Fancy those Japs making me do this,’says James, with some bitterness.
It is tempting to offer some good, mouth-filling condemnation of a people whose dark ways had defiled so many green places. But Edith opts for something more soothing.
‘Come, my spade, there is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers and grave-makers: they hold up Adam’s profession,’ she murmurs.
James mops his forehead and pauses for a drink before returning to his labours.
In truth an air raid trench is the last thing she wants in her garden. She has far better things to fill it with. Already her herbs, set wherever she could find a space, are taking over the vegetable garden, causing Dorothy and James to mutter comparisons with Hitler over-running Europe. And now the tennis court has been requisitioned for vegetables and it feels like she has been left, like Alexander, with no more worlds to conquer.
Edith watches the growing pile of clay, wondering how on earth they will camouflage it. Some of the inner-city councils, like Essendon, have constructed public trenches in their parks and gardens. But out here at Blackburn, with such a dispersed population, it was hardly efficient for them to consider municipal facilities. Instead the council urged ‘all residents to provide their own’.
‘Well, I suppose it’s best to carry an umbrella and it won’t rain,’ Edith says. The pile does look unhappily like a grave, though. The
