10^ THE WALKING LEAF. 



This appeared to me so very extraordinary, 

 that I thought it worth my while suddenly 

 to quit my verdant bower, in order to con- 

 template it ; and I could scarcely believe 

 my eyes, when I saw a live insect, in shape 

 and colour resembling the fragment of a 

 withered leaf, with the edges turned up, and 

 eaten away as it were by caterpillars, and at 

 the same time all over beset with prickles. 

 Nature, by this peculiar form, has certainly 

 extremely well defended and concealed, as in 

 a mask, this insect from birds and its other 

 diminutive foes; in all probability with a 

 view to preserve it, and employ it for some 

 important office in the system of her economy, 

 ^a system with which we are too little ac- 

 quainted, in general too little investigated ; 

 and which, in every part of it, we can never 

 sufficiently admire with that respect and 

 veneration which we owe to the great Author 

 of Nature and ruler of the Universe. 



