286 WALKING BRANCHES. 



the other with what Dr. Darwin would have called " a vege- 

 table soul." To discover an English specimen of such curious 

 similitude, we have only, in this present month of August, to 

 shake some boughs of a hawthorn hedge over an inverted 

 parasol or umbrella, into which will almost of a surety then 

 fall some two or three living and moving sticks, or caterpillars 

 of stick-like form,* quite as "queer'' and closely imitative 

 as some of the foreigners above noted. These strange little 

 animals have a brown skin, wrinkled and furrowed just like the 

 bark of the branches they are accustomed to occupy, with ;i 

 forked protuberance on the back resembling diverging twigs 

 or nascent thorns ; while, to render his mimicry the more com- 

 plete, this caterpillar sprig of the hawthorn, in common with 

 others of branch-like semblance, is in the habit, when at rest, 

 of stretching himself out stiff and straight, at right angles 

 with the twig whereon he reposes; and thus remaining for 

 hours motionless, supported only by the grasp of his hind 

 legs and a single thread proceeding from his mouth. This is 

 the caterpillar of a very common yellow moth, with reddish 

 markings, called the Brimstone,t and belongs to a family known 

 to collectors as Geometers, Measurers, Loopers, and Surveyors. 

 They are so called from their mode of walking, which is quite 

 as remarkable as their attitudes when at rest. Their bodies, 

 on commencement of their inarch, being looped up in the 

 form of a Greek Q, they hold by the hind legs, and stretch 



* Vignette. t Rumia cratcegcitu . 



