Stick Insects (Carausius morosus).



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published in the ‘Bulletin de la Societe d’Acclimatation,’ and have now

been put into book form, with many illustrations (‘ Etudes biologiques

sur quelques Orthopteres.’ Paris, 1916).


Caurausius was obtained by the Abbe Foucher in 1913 from

Mr. Morton, of Lausanne, but only females, but they have multiplied

to such an extent by parthenogenesis that he was obliged to let

loose a quantity in the garden of the Catholic University, where they

settled in the ivy covering the walls. And here I must signalise a

most striking case of the utter futility of the theory of protective

forms, etc. Sticks as the insects looked, the Blackbirds and the

Sparrows were not long in finding out that they were eatable, and

fell to work on them as their daily fare.


In the preface which Prof. Perrier has written for the Abbe

Foucher’s book lie remarks that stick-insects appeared on the earth

at a very remote period. Titanophasma, for instance, was in exist¬

ence when the surface of our globe was only just clothed with vege¬

tation of some kind, so that resemblance to sticks could not be of

any protective value to the orthopterous ancestor.


Must we not, therefore, ascribe tbe stick form to some general

influence which dominated equally plant and animal life?


I might add that the Abbe Foucher has at last obtained a

male specimen by putting some females on very short rations, as has

already been done in breeding butterflies from caterpillars.


Male or no male, the multiplication of Carausius is very great,

and growth so rapid that stick-insects will no doubt afford a very

timely substitute to aviculturists for the mealworms, of which so

large a number were imported before the war from the farms in

Germany.


Yours truly,


Pierre Amedie Pichot.


[Mr. Brook wrote about the stick insects as food for

insectivorous birds, ‘ Avic. Mag.,’ April, 1915.]



