212 
DARWINISM 
CHAP. 
its station; and it lias been seen to capture flies which came 
to the flowers. 
But the most curious and beautiful case of alluring protec¬ 
tion is that of a wingless Mantis in India, which is so formed 
and coloured as to resemble a pink orchis or some other 
fantastic flower. The whole insect is of a bright pink colour, 
the large and oval abdomen looking like the labellum of 
an orchid. On each side, the two posterior legs have im¬ 
mensely dilated and flattened thighs which represent the 
petals of a flower, while the neck and forelegs imitate the 
upper sepal and column of an orchid. The insect rests 
motionless, in this symmetrical attitude, among bright green 
foliage, being of course very conspicuous, but so exactly 
resembling a flower that butterflies and other insects settle 
upon it and are instantly captured. It is a living trap, 
baited in the most alluring manner to catch the unwary 
flower-haunting insects . 1 
The Coloration of Birds' Eggs. 
The colours of birds’ eggs have long been a difficulty on 
the theory of adaptive coloration, because, in so many cases 
it has not been easy to see what can be the use of the par¬ 
ticular colours, which are often so bright and conspicuous that 
they seem intended to attract attention rather than to be con¬ 
cealed. A more careful consideration of the subject in all its 
bearings shows, however, that here too, in a great number of 
cases, we have examples of protective coloration. When, 
therefore, we cannot see the meaning of the colour, we may 
suppose that it has been protective in some ancestral form, 
and, not being hurtful, has persisted under changed condi¬ 
tions which rendered the protection needless. 
We may divide all eggs, for our present purpose, into two 
1 A beautiful drawing of this rare insect, Hymenopus bicornis (in tlie 
nymph or active pupa state), was kindly sent me by Mr. Wood-Mason, Curator 
of the Indian Museum at Calcutta. A species, very similar to it, inhabits Java, 
where it is said to resemble a pink orchid. Other Mantidse, of the genus 
Goivylus, have the anterior part of the thorax dilated and coloured either 
white, pink, or purple ; and they so closely resemble flowers that, according 
to Mr. Wood-Mason, one of them, having a bright violet-blue prothoracic 
shield, was found in Pegu by a botanist, and was for a moment mistaken by 
him for a flower. See Proc, Ent. Sue. Lund., 1878, p. liii. 
