THE CAUSE OF MIMETIC RESEMBLA>'CE. 

 Fig. 3. Fig. 4. 



591 



Fig. 3 ( X 3). — An ant-like East- African Hemipterous insect, Myrmoplasta myra 

 (Gerst.), seen from above and from the left side. (From Gerstaeeker, 

 Article 6, Hemiptera, p. 9, in Fr. Stuhlmann's Zool. Ergeb. 1888- 

 1890, Berlin 1893.) 



Fig. 4.— An ant-like N. -American beetle, Eudcrces picipes (Fab.), seen from 

 above and from the right side. 



(Zool. Ergeb. einer Eeise in Ost-Afrika, Fr. Stuhlmann, Bd. I. 

 uo. ix. 2 ; Article 6, Hemiptera, p. 9 : Dietrich Eeimer, Berlin, 

 1893). 



Among Coleoptera the resemblance to ants is very common. 1 

 select as an example a little Lougicorn {Eicderces picipes^ Pab.), 

 ■which I found very abundantly upon the heads of Umbelliferous 

 plants at Pine Lake, Hartlaud, Wisconsin, in July and August 

 1897, when visiting Dr. C. A. Leuthstrom. Ants were also verv 

 common on the same flower-heads. The appearance and move- 

 ments of the beetles were extremely ant-like, the suggestion of 

 a stalked abdomen being conveyed by an oblique wliite line 

 crossing the elytra in a very shallow depression in which the 

 dark ground-colour of the insect appeared to be of a more intense 

 black than elsewhere. The increased darkness was in reality 



42* 



