286 WALKING BRANCHES. 



the other with what Dr. Darwin would have called " a vege- 

 table soul." To discover an English specimen of such curious 

 similitude, we have only, in this present month of August, to 

 shake some boughs of a hawthorn hedge over an inverted 

 parasol or umbrella, into which will almost of a surety then 

 fall some two or three living and moving sticks, or caterpillars 

 of stick-like form,* quite as " queer " and closely imitative as 

 some of the foreigners above noted. These strange little 

 animals have a brown skin, wrinkled and furrowed just like 

 the bark of the branches they are accustomed to occupy, with 

 a forked protuberance on the back resembling diverging twigs 

 or nascent thorns ; while, to render his mimicry the more com- 

 plete, this caterpillar sprig of the hawthorn, in common with 

 others of branch-like semblance, is in the habit, when at rest, 

 of stretching himself out stiff and straight, at right angles with 

 the twig whereon he reposes ; and thus remaining for hours 

 motionless, supported only by the grasp of his hind legs and 

 a single thread proceeding from his mouth. This is the cater- 

 pillar of a very common yellow moth, with reddish markings, 

 called the Brimstone,f and belongs to a family known to col- 

 lectors as Geometers, Measurers, Loopers, and Surveyors. They 

 are so called from their mode of walking, which is quite as re- 

 markable as their attitudes when at rest. Their bodies, on 

 commencement of their march, being looped up in the form 

 of a Greek 12, they hold by the hind legs, and stretch them- 



* Vignette. t Rumia, cratcegata. 



