It is, perhaps, 6 months since is saw a preying mantis in my yard, and so I was delighted to find this large one when I went out the front door, probably knocking it down, and into some old spider web. I would like to think that it will lay eggs in the backyard, where I relocated it to. I hope so, as they are so rare around here these days. This is disturbing. What’s going on in addition to pesticide usage? I read Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’ in the late ‘60’s, while still a boy, and she foretold what we have an ominous taste of these days.