H8 



Marvels of Insect Life. 



it is probable that a new nest was built elsewhere. Mr. Sladeii mentions a double 

 case of adaptation. A mouse had utilized a cast-off shoe as a nesting-place, and after 

 the mouse had done with it a humble-bee adapted the nest to her own use. Such 

 a course of procedure saves the colony-founding female the labour of collecting 

 all the material required, and enables her to devote her energies at once to the 

 laying of eggs and gathering of food. 



Walking-Leaves. 



In speaking of the stick-Insects we have remarked that the walking-leaf Insects ^ 



are included in the same family. 

 x\lthough superficially these portly- 

 looking leaves appear so different from 

 the sticks, in essentials they are much 

 alike, but only a naturalist, who looks 

 beneath the surface veneer, would 

 dream of bringing them together in 

 this way. Their life-history and course 

 of development are the same. Instead 

 of the hind-body being reduced to 

 almost the narrowest dimensions, it 

 appears in these Insects to be spread 

 oat as widely as the material will allow. 

 Each of the limbs bears thin lateral 

 expansions that are leaf-like, and like 

 the majority of leaves have toothed 

 edges. 



In their younger stages, before the 

 wings are developed, the flat hind-body 

 bears a general resemblance to a leaf 

 something like that of the common 

 cherry-laurel of our garden shrubberies ; 

 the lines of the segments with a few 

 colour-lines standing for the veining 

 of the leaf. In this condition the young 

 leaf-Insect is said to arrange its posi- 

 tion on a shrub with proper regard to 

 the attitudes of the real leaves so that 

 it passes as one of them ; though it is only when the wings and their covers 

 are fully developed that the marvellous deceptive likeness to foliage is fully seen. 

 When newly emerged from the egg — which is contained in a seed-like capsule 

 like the eggs of the sticks — the leaf-Insect is reddish-yellow in colour, and therefore 

 fairly conspicuous if it gets u])on the upper side of a leaf. But as soon as it has 

 made a meal the colouring matter of its food seems to ])ermeate all its tissues, and 

 makes it harmonize absolutely with the plant it is feeding on. This effect is so 

 remarkable tliat the colouring matter of tlic Insect has been submitted to 



> PhvUiuni. 



Photo b\ 



The Labour-saving Humble-Bee. 



[H. Bastin. 



Ill her honey-gathering the humble-bee has learned that much time 

 is to be saved by biting through the flower just above the nectar 

 glands, instead of thrusting her head in at the proper opening. 

 These wounds at the back of the bean-flower have been made by 

 the jaws of the bee in order to obtain the honey illicitly. 



