Sept. 1, 1807.] 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



197 



which wears perhaps the most perfect disguise is 

 the Onychocerus scorpio. This beetle is common 

 in South America, and was found abundantly by 

 Mr. Bates on the banks of the Amazon, but always 

 clinging to the rough bark of one kind of tree, 

 called by the natives Tapiriba. This bark was so 

 closely imitated by the beetle itself,— its elytra and 

 thorax being tubercled and coloured so as'exactly to 

 match it, and the insect clinging so closely as to 

 form, apparently, one surface with the tree, that Mr. 

 Bates assures me it was often absolutely impos- 

 sible to detect it by the closest inspection as long 

 as it remained motionless ! 



Many of the Tiger beetles, although they are such 

 conspicuous and beautiful objects in our cabinets, 

 are well disguised when in their natural stations. 

 Our commonest species, Cicindela campestris, is 

 fond of grassy banks, where its green colour makes 

 it difficidt to see it. Cicindela maritima is almost 

 exactly the same colour as the sandy shores it 

 haunts. The large Cicindela heros frequents the 

 mountainous forests of Celebes, where its brown 

 colour exactly matches with the dead leaves that 

 cover the ground. The magnificent velvety-green 

 Cicindela gloriosa was captured only on wet moss- 

 covered rocks in the bed of a mountain torrent in 

 the island of Celebes, where it was very difficult to 

 see it. The pale-coloured Cicindela Durvillei was 

 found on coral sand of almost exactly its own colour ; 

 and I noticed generally that, whatever the colour of 

 the sand or the soil, the common Tiger beetles of the 

 locality were of the same hue. A most remarkable 

 instance of this was a species which 1 found only 

 on the glistening, shiny mud of salt marshes, the 

 colour and shine of which it matched so exactly 

 that at a few yards' distance I could only detect it 

 by the shadow it cast when the sun shone ! 



Several Buprestidse of the genus Corcebus re- 

 semble the dung of birds freshly dropped on leaves, 

 and I have often been puzzled to determine whether 

 what I saw was worth picking up or not. Mr. Bates 

 tells us that Chlamys pilula cannot be distinguished 

 from the dung of caterpillars. Our own Ontho- 

 philus sulcatus is very like the seed of an 

 umbelliferous plant, and the common Pill beetle 

 (Byrrhus pilula) would be taken for anything rather 

 than an insect. 



TVe must now turn to the Orthopterous insects, 

 which contain some of the most surprising cases of 

 disguise yet discovered. The true Walking Leaf 

 has been already described at the commencement of 

 this article, but there are other insects of a quite 

 different structure which almost equally resemble 

 leaves, as shown by the names given to them by the 

 old writers ; such as Locusta citrifolia, L. laurifolia, 

 L. myrtifolia, &c. Acrydium gallinaceum, from the 

 Malay Archipelago, has an immense erect leaf-like 

 thorax ; A. platypterum has wings like the most beau- 

 tiful smooth green leaves ; while A. gi bbosum is like 



a little shapeless lump of mud or stick. The vora- 

 cious Mantidse arc often concealed in a similar 

 manner. Many have the thorax broadly dilated, and, 

 with the wing-covers, coloured like a dead or a green 

 leaf; and one has large brown legs and small wings, 

 so that it looks more like a cluster of bits of stick 

 and withered leaves than a living insect. 



Fig. 197. Stick Insect. 



The true Phasmidse, or Stick-insects, are the most 

 curious, perhaps, of all, and they are much more 

 abundant in the eastern forests than the Leaf- 

 insects. They vary from a few inches to a foot 

 long, and are almost always of the colour and shape 

 of pieces of stick, the legs forming the branches. 

 One of the most curious facts connected with them 

 is that they seem to know that if they rested in the 

 symmetrical attitudes in which they are always 

 drawn, with their legs spread out uniformly on each 



