70 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



of a stream, for this is the only way to find out what really goes 

 on in nature. A canopy of leaves arched overhead, the home 

 of many birds, and the granite boulders of the dry stream-bed, 

 and all along the banks, were marked with their white droppings. 

 One day I was startled to see one of these droppings move. It 

 was a mere white splash upon the stone, and when I approached 

 I saw I must be mistaken ; the thing was impossible ; and now 

 it was perfectly motionless. But I certainly saw it move, so I 

 bent down and touched it. It was an animal. Of course it was 

 as dead as a stone the moment I touched it, but one soon knows 

 these impostures, and I gave it a minute or two to become alive 

 — hastily sketching it meantime in case it should vanish through 

 the stone, for in that land of wonders one really never knows what 

 will happen next. Here was a bird-dropping suddenly become 

 alive and moving over a rock ; and now it was a bird- 

 dropping again ; and yet, like Galileo, I protest that it 

 moved. It would not come to, and I almost feared I might 

 be mistaken after all, so I turned it over on its other side. 

 Now, should any sceptic persist that this was a bird-dropping, I 

 leave him to account for a bird-dropping with six legs, a head, 

 and a segmented body. Righting the creature, which showed 

 no sign of life through all this ordeal, I withdrevv a few paces, 

 and watched developments. It lay motionless on the stone, no 

 legs, no head, no feelers, nothing to be seen but a flat patch of 

 white — just such a patch as you could make on the stone in a 

 second with a piece of chalk. Presently it stirred, and the spot 

 slowly sidled across the boulder until I caught the impostor and 

 imprisoned him for my cabinet. I saw in all about a dozen of 

 these insects after this. They are about half the size of a four- 

 penny-piece, slightly more oval than round, and as white as a 

 snowflake. This whiteness is due to a number of little tufts of 

 delicate down growing out from minute protuberances all over 

 the back. It is a fringe of similar tufts round the side that gives 

 the irregular margin, so suggestive of a splash ; and the under 

 surface of the body has no protection at all. The limbs are 

 mere threads, and the motion of the insect is slow and 

 monotonous, with frequent pauses to impress surrounding nature 

 with its moribund condition. Now, unless this insect, with this 

 colour and habit, were protectively coloured, it simply would not 

 have a chance to exist. It lies fearlessly exposed on the bare 

 stones during the brightest hours of the tropical day, a time 

 when almosf every other animal is skulking out of sight. Lying 

 upon all the stones round about are the genuine droppings of 

 birds ; and when one sees the two together it is difficult to say 

 whether one is most struck with the originality of the idea, or 

 the extraordinary audacity with which the role is carried out. — 

 Drununond's Tropical Africa. 



