Malayan Phasmidce, aiid Flowei'-like Beetle Larva. 441 



brightest. Possibly it is sensitive to change of temperature 

 or moisture, but this does not seem to be the ultimate 

 reason for its disappearance. At mid-day the mammals, 

 birds, and amphibians of the jungle are at rest. They are 

 not asleep, but they do not search actively for food, nor 

 come out of the wood into the clearings. Now Wallace 

 points out that the stomachs of insectivorous birds, especially 

 of forms allied to the cuckoos, some species of which are 

 very common in the jungle of Lower Siam, are often filled 

 with Phasmids. Lizards, of course, are generally most active 

 when the sun is hottest ; but in these hill-clearings reptiles 

 of all sorts are rare. In the buffalo lawns of the plains 

 of the Malay Peninsula, Phasmids are not plentiful, or, at 

 any rate, are not often seen. 



I have a certain amount of negative evidence that the 

 majority of Malayan Phasmidse are most active in the middle 

 of the day, beiug inclined to remain concealed in the early 

 morning and late afternoon. In the clearing on Bukit Besar 

 three species of the genus Necroscia were common, and when 

 the grass and ferns in which they lived were disturbed at 

 mid-day they would flutter about almost like moths, dis- 

 playing their pink-and-green or yellow-and-black wings to 

 the full. Numerous paired couples of N. roseipennis might 

 also be found on the leaves of shrubs and grass. 



Too late or too early in the day, it was impossible to see 

 a single stick-insect in the clearing; and during my six 

 months' stay in Lower Siam, I never was able to discover 

 any Phasmidae of any species late in the afternoon. The 

 only individual which I found in the early morning was 

 clinging to a blade of grass, with its front legs stretched out 

 rigidly in front of its head, and the other two pairs lying 

 close along the body, the second pair directed forwards and 

 the third backwards. The curious paired process which ter- 

 minates the abdomen in the genus to which this individual 

 belonged (Myronides) was clasped round the stem of the 

 grass, so as to conceal the junction between animal and 

 plant and make it more perfect. In this attitude the 

 Phasmid might almost have been taken for an enormous 

 Geometrid larva, but the angle which it formed with the 



VOL. XIV. 2 G 



