WALKING LEAVES. 285 



The above notes of admiration, varied according to the 

 mental compass of each observer, were drawn forth by different 

 specimens of those curious tropical insects, known popularly as 

 "Walking Leaves," an appropriate appellation, presenting as 

 they do, a perfect resemblance in form, colour, texture, and 

 veining to vegetable foliage in every stage of progression, from 

 verdant expansion to shrivelled decay. These strange copies, 

 not of leaves only but also of branches, are found in several 

 insect tribes and families, but chiefly those of Locusta, Mantis, 

 and Phasma. The locusts alone afford imitations, so close as 

 almost to deceive a botanical eye, of the leaves of the olive, 

 myrtle, citron, laurel, camella, thyme, grass, &c. ; after which 

 plants the species are even named. Not only do the wing- 

 cases resemble a leaf, but in many instances the first joint of 

 every limb simulates a small leaflet, the leg itself forming the 

 mid-rib, and in its prolongation beyond the tip resembling a 

 jointed stalk ; while the animal's head, even to the palpi, or 

 feelers, is so formed as to harmonise with the rest. 



Some of the tribe of Mantis treacherous and cruel crea- 

 tures, with long, desiccate, skeleton limbs are like spectral 

 anatomies of vegetable death yet living and locomotive. 

 But we need not visit India or China or even the British 

 Museum or other collections of foreign insects to find similar 

 resemblances, and sometimes such perfect ones between the 

 insect and the plant that both would seem to have been cast 

 in a common mould then endowed, the one with an animal, 



