250 



THE COLOUES OF ANIMALS 



Fig. 52.— a common British beetle 

 (Clylus arietis) which resembles 

 a wasp ; natural size. 



banded body are all most suggestive ; and although 

 the transparent wings are concealed except during 

 flight, it will be remembered 

 that the wings of a wasp 

 attract very little attention 

 under the same circumstances. 

 But the most remarkable 

 point in the resemblance can 

 only be appreciated by observ- 

 ing the living insect. When walking, the slender 

 wasp-like legs are moved in a rapid somewhat jerky 

 manner, very different from the usual stolid Coleo- 

 pterous stride, but remarkably like the active move- 

 ments of a wasp, which altvays seem to imply the 

 perfection of training. Wallace, Belt, and Semper 

 also give many instances of beetles and other insects 

 imitating the appearance of ants, which are extremely 

 abundant, and seem to be very free from attack, in 

 the tropics. 



I have chiefly selected a few common British in- 

 sects as examples of Mimicry, but the number might 

 be multiplied indefinitely from the insect fauna of 

 other countries. The examples are, of course, most 

 remarkable when the appearance of the order to which 

 the mimetic form belongs diverges most widely from 

 that which includes the imitated species. 



