252 THE COLOURS OF ANIMALS 



nauseous little beetles, and is so totally different from 

 the usual appearance of a grasshopper. There are 

 also many instances, from this and other localities, of 

 insects resembling specially protected beetles. Some- 

 times the peculiar defence of the mimicked species 

 takes the form of a hardness so extreme that insect- 

 eating animals are unable to make any way against it. 

 Such uneatable beetles are generally imitated by other, 

 and often distantly related, beetles; but there is a cricket 

 (Orthoptera) which defends itself in this way. The 

 active and predaceous tiger-beetles are also mimicked 

 by other beetles and insects of different orders. Thus 

 in the Phihppines a harmless cricket mimics one of 

 these dreaded insects in the closest manner. 



A wonderfully detailed example of Mimicry from 

 Tropical America 



One of the most interesting cases I have yet met 

 with was found by my friend Mr. W. L. Sclater in 

 Tropical America. In this part of the world leaf- 

 cutting ants are only too well known, being most de- 

 structive of the introduced trees. They are seen in 

 countless numbers passing along their well-worn roads 

 to the formicarium, and every homeward-bound ant 

 carries a piece of leaf, about the size of a sixpence, held 

 vertically in its jaws.^ Mr. Sclater found an insect of 

 an entirely different kind, and, I believe, belonging to 



• An interesting account of these ants, from which I have taken 

 this short description, is given by Mr. Belt, loc, cit. pp. 71 et seq. 



