OF THE AMAZON VALLEY. 509 



— the coloured tips of these wings, when they are closed, resembling a section of the 

 wood. Other Moths are deceptively like the excrement of birds on leaves. I met 

 with a species of Phytophagous Beetle {Chlamys pikUa) on the Amazons, which was 

 undistinguishable by the eye from the dung of Caterpillars on foliage. These two 

 latter cases of imitation should be carefully considered by those who would be in- 

 clined to think that the object of raimetic analogies in nature was simply variety, 

 beauty, or ornament : nevertheless these are certainly attendants on the phenomena ; 

 some South-American Cassiclcs resemble glittering drops of dew on the tips of leaves, 

 owing to their burnished pearly gold colour. Some species of Longicorn Coleoptera 

 {Onychocerus scorpio and concentriciis) have precisely the colour and sculpture of the 

 bark of the particular species of tree on which each is found. It is remarkable that 

 other species of the same small group of Longicornes {JPhacellocera JBuquetii, Cy- 

 clopeplus Batesii) counterfeit, not inanimate objects, like their near kindred just cited, 

 but other insects, in the same way as the Leptalides do the Seliconidce. 



Amongst the living objects mimicked by insects are the predacious species from which 

 it is the interest of the mimickers to be concealed. Thus, the species of Scaplmra (a 

 genus of Crickets) in South America resemble in a wonderful manner different Sand 

 Wasps of large size, which are constantly on the search for Crickets to provision their 

 nests with. Another pretty Cricket, which I observed, was a good imitation of a Tiger 

 Beetle*, and was always found on trees frequented by the Beetles {Odontoelieilcs). 

 There are endless instances of predacious insects being disguised by having similar 

 shapes and colours to those of their prey ; many Spiders are thus endowed : but some 

 hunting Spiders mimic flower-buds, and station themselves motionless in the axils of 

 leaves and other parts of plants to wait for their victims. 



The most extraordinary instance of imitation I ever met with was that of a very 

 large Caterpillar, which stretched itself from amidst the foliage of a tree which I was 

 one day examining, and startled me by its resemblance to a small Snake. The first three 

 segments behind the head were dilatable at the wiU of the insect, and had on each side 

 a large black pupillated spot, which resembled the eye of the reptile : it was a poisonous 

 or viperine species mimicked, and not an innocuous or colubrine Snake ; this was proved 

 by the imitation of keeled scales on the crown, which was produced by the recumbent 

 feet, as the Caterpillar threw itself backwards. The Rev. Joseph Greene, to whom I gave 

 a description, supposes the insect to have belonged to the family Notodontidce, many of 

 which have the habit of thus bending themselves. I carried off the Caterpillar, and 

 alarmed every one in the village where I was then living, to whom I showed it. It 

 unfortunately died before reaching the adult state. 



p. 164). The author enumerates many very singular cases of mimicry; he also states his belief that the mimicry is 

 intended to protect the insects from their enemies. 



There is an interesting note, by the Rev. Joseph Greene, in the 'Zoologist,' 1856, p. 5073, on the autumn and 

 vpinter Moths of England, whose colours are shown by the author to be adapted to the prevailing tints of nature in 

 the season in which the species appear. 



* A remarkable instance of deceptive analogy relating to a Cricket and a species of Cicindela is described by West- 

 wood in Trans. Lin. Soc. vol. xviii. p. 419. In this memoir, Mr. Westwood has enumerated many curious cases of 

 mimetic analogy. 



