io6 The Colours of Animals, 



3. There are five principal types of colouring 

 among caterpillars. Those which live inside wood, 

 or leaves, or underground, are generally of an uni- 

 form pale hue ; the small leaf-eating caterpillars 

 are green, like the leaves on which they feed. The 

 other three types may, to compare small things with 

 great, be likened to the three types of colouring 

 among cats. There are the ground cats, such as 

 the lion or puma, which are brownish or sand 

 colour, like the open places they frequent. So also 

 caterpillars which conceal themselves by day at the 

 roots of their food-plant, tend, as we have seen, 

 even if originally green, to assume the colour of 

 earth. Nor must I omit to mention the Geometrida?, 

 to which I have already referred, and which, from 

 their brown colour, their peculiar attitudes, and the 

 frequent presence of warts or protuberances, closely 

 mimic bits of dry stick. That the caterpillars of 

 these species were originally green, we may infer 

 from the fact that some of them at least are still of 

 that colour when first born. 



4. Then there are the spotted or eyed cats, such 

 as the leopard, which live among trees; and their 

 peculiar colouring renders them less conspicuous 

 by simulating spots of light which penetrate through 

 foliage. So also many caterpillars are marked with 

 spots, eyes, or patches of colour. Lastly, there are 

 the jungle cats, of which the tiger is the typical 

 species, and which have stripes, rendering them 

 very difficult to see among the brown grass which 



