62 STRICTLY INCOG, 



rapine argues the final abyss of arachnoid perfidy. It 

 reminds one of that charming and amiable young lady in 

 Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson's * Dynamiter,' who amused 

 herself in moments of temporary gaiety by blowing up 

 inhabited houses, inmates and all, out of pure lightness 

 of heart and girUsh frivolity. An Indian mantis or praying 

 insect, a little less wicked, though no less cruel than the 

 spiders, deceives the flies who come to his arms under the 

 false pretence of being a quiet leaf, upon which they may 

 light in safety for rest and refreshment. Yet another 

 abandoned member of the same family, relying boldly upon 

 the resources of tropical nature, gets itself up as a complete 

 orchid, the head and fangs being moulded in the exact image 

 of the beautiful blossom, and the arms folding treacher- 

 ously around the unhappy insect which ventures to seek 

 for honey in its deceptive jaws. 



Happily, however, the tyrants and murderers do not 

 always have things all their own way. Sometimes the in- 

 offensive prey tm'n the tables upon their torturers with 

 distinguished success. For example, Mr. Wallace noticed 

 a kind of sand- wasp, in Borneo, much given to devouring 

 crickets ; but there was one species of cricket which exactly 

 reproduced the features of the sand- wasps, and mixed among 

 them on equal terms without fear of detection. Mr. Belt 

 saw a green leaf-like locust in Nicaragua, overrun by 

 foraging ants in search of meat for dinner, but remaining 

 perfectly motionless all the time, and evidently mistaken 

 by the hungry foragers for a real piece of the fohage it 

 mimicked. So thoroughly did this innocent locust under- 

 stand the necessity for remaining still, and pretending to 

 be a leaf under all advances, that even when Mr. Belt took 

 it up in his hands it never budged an inch, but strenuously 

 preserved its rigid leaf-like attitude. As other insects 

 • sham dead,' this ingenious creature shammed vegetable. 



