1900.] INSECTS Ol? THE " SKEAT EXPEDITION." 849 



then botanist to the Expedition, together with a spray of the 

 flowers and leaves of an acacia among which he had found it. 

 The flowers of this tree are very much like those of the common 

 Mimosa, but larger in size and of a far less brilliant shade of yellow. 

 The leaves are much divided. Mr. Yapp tells me that he found 

 the specimen on a tree near the edge of a buffulo-lawn across the 

 Kelantan river opposite Aring, about eleven o'clock in the fore- 

 noon. Even in the dim light of the mosque in which we were 

 then staying the insect was very inconspicuous among the flowers ; 

 and when it was taken out into the brilliant sunshine it completely 

 disappeared among the shadows cast by them and the leaves. The 

 dark bars on its body and limbs were slightly wider than the spaces 

 between the pinnules of the acacia-leaves, and the prominences 

 on the ventral surface of the abdomen were of the shape, though 

 not of the colour, of the prominent parts on the unopened flower- 

 buds ; for it will be noticed that the buds were green, while the 

 structures on the insect's body were pale pink. These prominences 

 were conspicuous ; but the lights and shadows among the feathery 

 leaves and fur-like flowers were so confused that a difference in 

 colour detracted little from the similitude between the abdomen, 

 cut into as it was by the black bars which were conspicuous on its 

 edges but interrupted in its middle line, and the distal extremity 

 of one of the racemose inflorescences of the acacia. 



The insect and the flower had not a single colour in common 

 intrinsically ; and yet, under given conditions of climate, the 

 colours of the two became indistinguishable from one another. 



The Malays at Aring called this insect Striped Kanchong ; but 

 the name was evidently invented for the occasion. The plant on 

 which it was found being a tree and not a shrub, it was much 

 more liable to escape detection, even had the acacia been as 

 common as the " Rhododendron." There are plenty of similar 

 acacias in Kelantan, and there is no reason why the Mantis should 

 confine itself to one species, for its colour and form are adapted 

 for concealment among any flowers and leaves of this peculiar type. 

 The possession of leaf or petal-like expansions on the limbs is a 

 peculiarity shared by many Mantids with leaf-like insects of dif- 

 ferent groups, but as a rule their outline is not so regular as it is in 

 the case of this species and of Hymenopus. With regard to the 

 origin of such structures and their primitive function, it is worth 

 while noticing their rudimentary condition, whether it be a specific 

 or merely a pupal character, in forms like this Striped Harpagid 

 from Kelantan. It cannot be said that in this case they give any 

 direct aid in concealing the insect by resembling petals of a flower 

 or any other vegetable organ. But, especially where we get the 

 extremes of light and shade, any little irregularity of outline or 

 projection from the surface of the body of an animal may give it 

 a distinct aid in hiding itself. This is truer in the case of the 

 smaller invertebrates than it is in that of vertebrates, though the 

 principle is well exemplified by many fish, and not a few lizards, 

 that live among terrestrial and aquatic plants. A large nocturnal 



