268 ORTHOPTERA 



CHAP. 



group have been only very inadequately investigated, it will 

 probably prove to be. a very distinct and isolated one. The 

 species are not well known, but arc probably numerous, and the 

 individuals are believed not to be rare, though the collections of 

 entomologists arc very badly supplied with them. The resem- 

 blance of the tegmina or front wings to leaves is certainly of 

 the most remarkable nature. During the early life the Insect 

 does not possess the tegmina, but it is said then to adapt itself 

 to the appearance of the leaves it lives on, by the positions it 



FIG. 155. Phyllium scythe, male. Sylhet. (After Murray.) 



assumes and the movements 1 it makes. When freshly hatched 

 it is of a reddish-yellow colour. The colour varies at different 

 periods of the life, but " always more or less resembles a leaf." 

 After the young Insect has commenced eating the leaves it speedily 

 becomes bright green ; and when the metamorphosis is completed 

 the female Insect is possessed of the leaf-like tegmina shown in 

 Figs. 154, 156. Before its death the specimen described by 

 Murray passed " through the different hues of a decaying leaf." 

 Brongniart has had opportunities of observing one of these leaf- 

 Insects, and has, with the aid of M. Becquerel, submitted their 

 colouring matter to spectral analysis, 2 with the result of finding 



1 See Murray, Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, January 1856. 

 2 CR. Ac. Paris, cxviii. 1894, No. 24, p. 1299. 



