1900.) INSECTS OF THE “‘SKEAT EXPEDITION.” 849 
then botanist to the Expedition, together with a spray of the 
flowers and leaves of an acacia among which he had found it. 
The flowers of this tree are very much like thoxe of the common 
Mimosa, but larger in size and of a far less brilliant shade of yellow. 
The leaves are much divided. Mr. Yapp tells me that he found 
the specimen on a tree near the edge of a buffulo-lawn across the 
Kelantan river opposite Aring, about eleven o’clock in the fore- 
noon. Hyen in the dim light of the mosque in which we were 
then staying the insect was very inconspicuous among the flowers ; 
and when it was taken out into the brilliart sunshine it completely 
disappeared among the shadows cast by them and the leaves. The 
dark bars on its body and limbs were slightly wider than the spaces 
between the pinnules of the acacia-leaves, and the prominences 
on the ventral surface of the abdomen were of the shape, though 
not of the colour, of the prominent parts on the unopened flower- 
buds ; for it will be noticed that the buds were green, while the 
structures on the insect’s body were pale pink. These prominences 
were conspicuous ; but the lights and shadows among the feathery 
leaves and fur-like flowers were so confused that a difference in 
colour detracted little from the similitude between the abdomen, 
cut into as it was by the black bars which were conspicuous on its 
edges but interrupted in its middle line, and the distal extremity 
of one of the racemose inflorescences of the acacia. 
The insect and the flower had not a single colour in common 
intrinsically ; and yet, under given conditions of climate, the 
colours of the two became indistinguishable from one another. 
The Malays at Aring called this insect Striped Kanchong ; but 
the name was evidently invented for the occasion. The plant on 
which it was found being a tree and not a shrub, it was much 
more liable to escape detection, even had the acacia been as 
common as the “ Rhododendron.” There are plenty of similar 
acacias in Kelantan, and there is no reason why the Mantis should 
confine itself to one species, for its colour and form are adapted 
for concealment among any flowers and leaves of this peculiar type. 
The possession of leaf or petal-like expansions on the limbs is a 
pecuharity shared by many Mantids with leaf-like insects of dif- 
ferent groups, but as a rule their outline is not so regular as it is in 
the case of this species and of Hymenopus. With regard to the 
origin of such structures and their primitive function, it is worth 
while noticing their rudimentary condition, whether it be a specific 
or merely a pupal character, in forms like this Striped Harpagid 
from Kelantan. It cannot be said that in this case they give any 
direct aid in concealing the insect by resembling petals of a flower 
or any other vegetable organ. But, especially where we get the 
extremes of light and shade, any little irregularity of outline or 
projection from the surface of the body of an animal may give it 
a distinct aid in hiding itself. This is truer in the case of the 
smaller invertebrates than it is in that of vertebrates, though the 
principle is well exemplified by many fish, and not a few lizards, 
that live among terrestrial and aquatic plants. A large nocturnal 
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