CHAP. V. COLOUR OF INSECTS. 



many of the wood-bugs, or hemipterous insects, and 

 even to some Lepidoptera. We have two or three 

 Brazilian moths, whose wings appear like withered 

 leaves that have been eroded or gnawed round their 

 margins by insects : when these moths are disturbed, 

 instead of flying away, they fall upon the ground like 

 the leaf which they resemble, so that it is extremely 

 difficult, if not impossible, on such occasions, to know 

 what they really are. The English lappet moth (Bom. 



byx quercifolia F., 

 57 fig. 57.) is one of 

 the best native ex- 

 amples we can ad- 

 duce of this pas- 

 sive deceit ; for its 

 wings, both in 

 shape and colour, 

 resemble an arid 

 brown leaf. There are, even in this country, a genus of 

 spiders, which, without spinning any web, live entirely 

 in flowers, and, being coloured precisely the same as the 

 petals, they can only be detected on a very close examin- 

 ation. Mr. Kirby mentions an African Pneumora, a 

 sort of grasshopper, whose rose-coloured wings, shroud- 

 ing its vesiculose abdomen, gave it much the appear- 

 ance of a fine flower ; while several of the beetles, be- 

 longing to the families Trogidce and Curculionida, by 

 the spine-like protuberances and deep sulcations of their 

 wing-cases, resemble the dried hispid seeds of plants. 

 Mr. Kirby suggests, and with much reason, that the inti- 

 mate resemblance of certain flies (which in the larva state 

 live in the nests of bees) to Hymenoptera, is, that they 

 may deceive the rightful lords of the dwelling, and enter 

 with security for the purpose of depositing their eggs. 

 (18?.) The brilliancy of colour possessed by many 

 tribes, and which of itself is sufficiently constant to 

 point out a natural group, has, no doubt, some relation 

 to the safety of the creatures themselves. These colours, 

 often highly metallic, may dazzle the sight of their 



