146 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



suggestive of a bee, on the other we find the wonder- 

 ful leaf-insect of the tropics so similar in its marking 

 to the colouring, veining, form, and texture of some 

 leaves that it becomes extremely difficult to detect its 

 presence when motionless amongst the surrounding foliage. 

 The upper surfaces of the wings of many moths, and the 

 under surfaces of the wings of most butterflies, those parts 

 in fact in each that are most visible when the insect is 

 at rest, are beautifully mottled and shaded with greys and 

 browns resembling the tints of barks and lichens. The 

 Lappet and Bufftip moths afford beautiful illustrations of 

 the mimicry of foliage and dead sticks. Some caterpillars 

 closely resemble twigs, and many of our readers will 

 remember to have seen specimens in our museums of the 

 eccentric stick insects of the Eastern archipelago. It would 

 be easy to multiply to almost any extent additional 

 examples of this curious mimicry, protective or otherwise. 



The old poet Langhorne has the following lines on the 

 subject of our illustration : 



" See on that flowret's velvet breast, 



How close the busy vagrant lies ! 

 His thin-wrought plume, his downy breast, 

 The ambrosial gold that swells his thighs. 



Perhaps his fragrant load may bind 

 His limbs ; we'll set the captive free; 



I sought the living bee to find, 

 And found the picture of a bee." 



The name by which the plant is commonly known is 

 so distinctly appropriate that, with the exception of the old 

 name of " honey-bee flowere," given in. some of the old 

 herbals, it has no alternative title, the " dead carkasse of a 

 Bee," to quote Gerarde, being too evidently to the fore to 

 make any name appropriate that ignored so marked a feature 



