204 ROMANCE OF THE INSECT WORLD CHAP. 



enemies wage continual war, many of whom derive 

 their whole sustenance from insects. Nor are these 

 tribes at peace with their own kind, but ever live in a 

 state of internecine broil, the strong often preying on 

 the weak and the cunning upon those of simpler wit. 

 An insect is like a country of diminutive size, and 

 apparently almost wanting in natural safeguards. 

 No seas of unrivalled swiftness of motion roll round 

 it and shield it from the depredations of foes ; no 

 mountain barriers of strength enable it to withstand 

 them. But our insect world is not without resource. 

 Though small, its inhabitants are in multitude infinite ; 

 and though from their nature seldom able to flee or to 

 fight, on them are bestowed different modes of resist- 

 ance to fate to save the race from extirpation. 



Among biological phenomena of great interest, the 

 principle of disguise has long been known to exist in 

 most classes of the animal kingdom. In other, per- 

 haps plainer, words, their external colouring is adapted 

 to their conditions of life. The resemblances are of 

 different kinds; the most usual are cases of simple 

 concealment. The animal in form as in colour 

 imitates or simulates, more or less exactly, the ap- 

 pearance of some object in its environment which is 

 of no interest to its enemies, and thus passes un- 

 detected ; or it harmonises in a general way with its 

 surroundings, and so succeeds in eluding attention. 

 In these instances the object imitated is invariably 

 inanimate or part of a vegetable structure. The analo- 

 gies go by the name of " protective resemblances." 



It does not seem possible for an insect to be more 

 simply and admirably defended than by this system. 



