1 66 INSECT BEHAVIOR 



third swing of my net produced the same results. Try as I might, 

 between swoops, I could find no trace of my quarry until they re- 

 turned to the trail of their own accord, yet they never appeared to 

 go far away. 



At length I decided to beat the surrounding vegetation, and upon 

 doing so caught two of the butterflies. Examination revealed that 

 the under side of the wings were bright green, which matched per- 

 fectly with the jungle leaves. I stunned one and placed it upon a 

 leafy twig and turned away. In a minute I looked back and found 

 the insect with great difficulty, so perfectly did it blend with its sur- 

 roundings. When I swung my net, the insects had retreated to the 

 foliage and although bright blue in flight, they instantly disappeared 

 upon folding their wings when coming to rest among the leaves. 



In the Andean jungle of Colombia, one finds strange transparent 

 butterflies. Unlike our familiar species, they possess no scales and 

 are therefore without color patterns. The wings are the color of 

 clouded glass, but quite transparent. In flight they are easily seen, 

 but upon coming to rest among the brown leaves which cover the 

 forest floor, they become more or less invisible and are thus pro- 

 tected. 



Placed upon a printed page, one may read through their wings as 

 readily as through a piece of glass, only the body and veins of the 

 insect being too dense for this purpose. 



I once found a drinking place of these butterflies in Colombia. A 

 huge moss-grown boulder, upon which a tiny stream of water con- 

 tinually fell, produced a popular saloon to which hundreds of these 

 skeleton insects resorted. It was an interesting sight to see them 

 gathered together in such numbers to the exclusion of other species. 

 From a distance only their brown bodies and wing veins were visi- 

 ble, resembling a multitude of stick insects, clustered upon the water- 

 soaked moss. 



