in ANIMAL LIFE IN THE TROPICAL FORESTS 287 



Mantidse usually called " praying insects," from their habit of 

 sitting with their long fore-feet held up as if in prayer are 

 really tigers among insects, lying in wait for their prey, which 

 they seize with their powerful serrated fore-feet. They are 

 usually so coloured as to resemble the foliage among which 

 they live, and as they sit quite motionless, they are not easily 

 perceived. 



The Phasmidse are perfectly inoffensive leaf-eating insects of 

 very varied forms ; some being broad and leaf-like, while others 

 are long and cylindrical, so as to resemble sticks, whence they 

 are often called walking-stick insects. The imitative resem- 

 blance of some of these insects to the plants on which they 

 live is marvellous. The true leaf-insects of the East, forming 

 the genus Phyllium, are the size of a moderate leaf, which their 

 large wing-covers and the dilated margins of the head, thorax, 

 and legs cause them exactly to resemble. The veining of the 

 wings and their green tint exactly correspond to that of the 

 leaves of their food-plant ; and as they rest motionless during 

 the day, only feeding at night, they the more easily escape 

 detection. In Java they are often kept alive on a branch of 

 the guava tree ; and it is a common thing for a stranger, when 

 asked to look at this curious insect, to inquire where it is, and 

 on being told that it is close under his eyes, to maintain that 

 there is no insect at all, but only a branch with green leaves. 



The larger wingless stick-insects are often eight inches to 

 a foot long. They are abundant in the Moluccas ; hanging on 

 the shrubs that line the forest-paths ; and they resemble sticks 

 so exactly, in colour, in the small rugosities of the bark, in the 

 knots and small branches, imitated by the joints of the legs 

 which are either pressed close to the body, or stuck out at 

 random, that it is absolutely impossible, by the eye alone, to 

 distinguish the real dead twigs which fall down from the trees 

 overhead, from the living insects. The writer has often looked 

 at them in doubt, and has been obliged to use the sense of 

 touch to determine the point. Some are small and slender 

 like the most delicate twigs ; others again have wings, and it 

 is curious that these are often beautifully coloured, generally 

 bright pink, sometimes yellow, and sometimes finely banded 

 with black ; but when at rest the wings fold up so as to be 

 completely concealed under the narrow wing-covers, and the 



