VIII THE DISGUISES OF INSECTS 195 



was very difficult to see it. The pale-coloured Cicindela 

 DuTvillei was found on coral sand of almost exactly its own 

 colour ; and I noticed generally that, whatever the colour 

 of the sand or the soil, the common Tiger beetles of the 

 locality were of the same hue. A most remarkable instance 

 of this was a species which I found only on the glistening, 

 slimy mud of salt marshes, the colour and shine of which 

 it matched so exactly that at a few yards' distance I could 

 only detect it by the shadow it cast when the sun shone ! 



Several Buprestidse of the genus Coroebus resemble the 

 dung of birds freshly dropped on leaves, and I have often 

 been puzzled to determine whether what I saw was worth 

 picking up or not. Mr. Bates tells us that Chlamys pihda 

 cannot be distinguished from the dung of caterpillars. 

 Our own Onthophihts sulcatus is very like the seed of an 

 umbelliferous plant, and the common Pill beetle {Byrrhus 

 pihda) would be taken for anything rather than an insect. 



We must now turn to the Orthopterous insects, which 

 contain some of the most surprising cases of disguise yet 

 discovered. The true Walking Leaf has been already 

 described at the commencement of this chapter, but there 

 are other insects of a quite different structure which 

 almost equally resemble leaves, as shown by the names 

 given to them by the old writers ; such as Locusta citri- 

 folia, L. laurifolia, L. myrtifolia, &c. Acrydium gallinaceum, 

 from the Malay Archipelago, has an immense erect leaf- 

 like thorax; A. platyjjtenim has wings like the most 

 beautiful smooth green leaves ; while A. gibbosiim is like 

 a little shapeless lump of mud or stick. The voracious 

 Mantidse are often concealed in a similar manner. Many 

 have the thorax broadly dilated, and, with the wing-covers, 

 coloured like a dead or a green leaf; and one has large 

 brown legs and small wings, so that it looks more like a 

 cluster of bits of stick and withered leaves than a living- 

 insect. 



The true Phasmidse, or Stick-insects, are the most 

 curious, perhaps, of all, and they are much more abundant 

 in the eastern forests than the Leaf-insects. They vary 

 from a few inches to a foot long, and are almost always of 

 the colour and shape of pieces of stick, the legs forming 



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