132 



Marvels of Insect Life. 



The feet of the stick-Insect end in two sharp hooks, and between them is a httle 

 cushion. These arrangements enable it to take hold rapidly, and to retain that 

 hold securely in spite of jerking of the branch to which it is clinging. The fore- 

 part of the body of dixippus is covered with minute points, which might be the 

 beginnings of spines on a twig, but as they are so small as scarcely to be noticed 



without a lens, they cannot be considered 

 as having any value in heightening the 

 resemblance to vegetable growth. But 

 they show a tendency which is more 

 manifest in some of the large tropical 

 species, where spines are so well developed 

 as to be an absolute protection against 

 any Insect-eating bird or mammal that 

 was fully aware of the real nature of these 

 fraudulent sticks. An example of these 

 spiny sticks will be found figured on 

 page 133, and another appears at the top 

 of the coloured frontispiece. 



In the winged species the wings are 

 larger and more perfect in the males ; and 

 there are species in which only this sex 

 is winged. Brown and green are the 

 prevailing tints of the stick-Insects ; and 

 these colours vary a great deal with the 

 growth and habits of the Insect, and, it 

 is suspected, with the seasons also. An 

 infant stick when it leaves the egg on the 

 ground and climbs up the stem of a shrub 

 is brown, but becomes green when feeding 

 among the leaves, and turns brown again 

 in later life when it has to mimic a twig 

 of fair thickness. Some of them have 

 their brown mottled with green markings, 

 which resemble the minute liverworts 

 which cover the stems and leaves of the 

 jungle flora. Many of them have the 

 unpleasant habit of ejecting an acrid and 

 evil-smelling hquid from glands on their 

 fore-body. It is said that this fluid 

 getting into the human eye has caused 

 blindness. Although, as stated, there 

 as a native of Britain. 

 The walking-leaf Insects arc regarded by systematists as belonging to the same 

 family as the stick-Insects : but they present so different an appearance that we 

 reserve them for separate treatment. 



Photo by] [E. Step, F.L.S. 



A Domesticated Stick-Insect. 



In recent years this Indian species lias been reared extensively 

 in this country, its sluggish habits and the absence of wings 

 niaUing it amenable to close confineinent. In almost all cases the 

 indivitluals are females, the male having been seen on two or 

 three occasions only ; nevertheless, the females produce an 

 enormous number of fertile eggs. The hatching of an egg of 

 this species is shown on page 130. 



are European species, not one is found 



