CHAPTER VIII 



THE DISGUISES OF INSECTS 



Every one has heard of the wonderful Leaf- insect of 

 the tropics, which is scarcely less a puzzle to the scientific 

 naturalist than it is to the natives of the countries it 

 inhabits. I have been told over and over again by in- 

 telligent persons in the East of the curious plant whose 

 leaves changed into insects ! And I could never convince 

 them that this was not the true explanation, for they 

 would say, " It is no good your trying to persuade me, for 

 I have seen the creature myself; and I assure you that 

 it has real leaves growing out of it, exactly the same as 

 the other leaves that grow upon the tree." And we really 

 cannot wonder at this belief, for when the creature is 

 alive it remains motionless among the foliage, and the 

 colour, veining, form, and texture of its wing-covers and 

 appendages, are so wonderfully like those of leaves that it 

 is extremely difficult to distinguish it at all. 



A few years since a specimen of the Phyllmm scythe, 

 the " Walking Leaf" of India, was kept alive at the Royal 

 Botanic Garden at Edinburgh. Mr. Andrew Murray wrote 

 a long account of it, and among other matters says : " It 

 so exactly resembled the leaf on which it fed, that when 

 visitors were shown it, they usually, after looking carefully 

 over the plant for a minute, declared that they could see 

 no insect. It had then to be more minutely pointed out 

 to them; and although seeing is notoriously said to be 

 believing, it looked so absolutely the same as the leaves 

 among which it rested, that this test would rarely satisfy 



