28 TRUE TALES OF THE INSECTS. 



better protected, and will propagate their kind. In this 

 way, certain species tend to divide into two varieties, the 

 one of a green colour appertaining to vegetation, the 

 other grey, living amid sands and rocks. 



There are species which live exclusively on sterile 

 rocks and plains, where the alteration of colour , has 

 become an accomplished fact ; they have always a grey 

 or yellow tint, in conformity with that of the soil on 

 which they reside. Those insects which assume colours 

 other than green may be looked upon as a younger form, 

 replacing an older type. They belong almost entirely to 

 the Old World ; the species of the New World appertain 

 essentially to the class of green mantidae. 



Those Curious Creatures tke Eremiaphilce. 



As an example of the ground-types, take those curious 

 creatures (Eremiaphila, see Fig. 8) first discovered by 

 Savigny at the time of the 1798 expedition to Egypt. 

 Not by their colour alone, but by the rugosity of their 

 body, these insects imitate the earth. They are essen- 

 tially dwellers in deserts ; they inhabit deserts deprived 

 of all vegetation, and enjoy power of adaptation to their 

 surroundings such that they always offer the most perfect 

 identity with the shade of the sands and pebbles on which 

 they move, giving rise to local varieties. Lefebvre, who 



