136 Stick-Insects. 



attaining to a length of nine or ten inches. The 

 insects in the Gardens, however, will not, when 

 full grown, be more than three or four inches in 

 length, belonging, as they do, to one of the 

 comparatively small species. At the present time 

 they are most curious little creatures, bright green 

 in colour, barely an inch in length from the tips of 

 their out-stretched forelegs to the ends of their 

 abdomens, and have a singularly attenuated 

 appearance. They are kept in a glass-case, the 

 bottom of which is filled with growing grass ; on 

 this, when first hatched, they seem to rest, and 

 there easily escape notice. They are supplied with 

 a small branch of hazel, on the leaves of which 

 they feed. Many of them, however, leave the 

 cover of the plants and wander to the top of their 

 case, where they are very noticeable; they are able 

 to do this, as the formation of their feet makes it 

 easy for them to walk on smooth surfaces. Like 

 the whole of their order Orthoptera these 

 insects undergo an imperfect metamorphosis ; that is 

 to say, they are hatched from the egg in a form 

 closely resembling that of their parents. They 

 come into the world fully equipped with three 

 pairs of legs, which retain their shape with but 

 little, if any, alteration, during the creature's 

 existence, and all of which are walking limbs, in 

 which they differ from those of the Mantidae, a 

 family of raptorial insects nearly allied to the 

 Phasmidae, whose forelegs are adapted for seizing 

 their prey. At all stages of their existence they 



