ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 65 



Loitering in a bit of open wood on a hot day, with the mind more active than. 

 the body, my eye was arrested by the unusual appearance of a particular spot upon a 

 moss-covered tree. My mental reflection was : How much that bit of moss has assumed 

 the appearance of a moth. I looked closely. It seemed to be a bit of moss only ; I 

 gave it a punch with the end of my cane when a desirable specimen of Agrotis prasina. 

 fell to the ground, ruined. 



Having made the discovery that many of the fall moths rested during the day in 

 the shrivelled leaves remaining attached to the trees and bushes, and that a sharp 

 stroke with a stick would bring them to the ground as if dead, I struck an oak branch, 

 something dropped. I recognized nothing but bits of tinted leaves on the ground, and 

 was on the point of moving on when it occurred to me that it fell too heavily for a bit 

 of leaf, then I looked intently, stooped down and examined closely, when I detected the 

 form of a moth, and such a beauty as I thought I had never seen before; my first speci- 

 men of Xanthia togata, arrayed in golden yellow and purplish brown, blending into and 

 harmonizing perfectly with the tints of the decaying vegetation around it. 



The first Cryptolechia Schlcegeri that I came upon, with its pure white patches and 

 dark and light gray mottling, resting conspicuously on the upper surface of a dark green 

 leaf, and its wings so tightly rolled around its abdomen that the thorax and head formed 

 a lump at the one end, whilst it tapered off to a sharp point slightly turned up at the 

 other, I found it utterly impossible in the " dim religious light " prevailing under the 

 leafy dome of a virgin forest, to decide whether it was the dropping of a small bird or 

 an insect. So to settle the question I jarred it into my open umbrella when it rolled 

 down the side without thowing the slightest signs of life and I had concluded to dump 

 it on the ground, but when it reached the level it gave a hitch to regain its feet, and 

 it was dumped into my collecting bottle. C. Schlcegeri was always a rather scarce moth 

 with me ; one and two in a season was usually the limit of my captures, and sometimes 

 a season would pass without my seeiDg one. Upon one occasion I thought myself in 

 great luck ; I had not been long at one of my hunting grounds when I espied the now 

 well known object in its usual attitude on the surface of a leaf. I secured jfe and very 

 soon I got another ; whilst looking around I detected at a little distance the indication, 

 of a third. I thought to myself, they are plentiful to-day, so moving towards it I was 

 in the act of enclosing it, when my opinion changed. Oh ! That's it, is it 1 Ah, well, 

 it can stay there ; it was the reality this time, not the resemblance. 



Strolling in a beech wood one sultry day, and feeling oppressed with excessive heat 

 and want of success I sat down upon a fallen tree. Whilst contemplating the sur- 

 roundings my attention was arrested by what appeared to be some dried beech leaves 

 attached to a fallen branch that was lying about four feet in front of me and about 

 eight inches from the ground. They were of the same bleached-brown color as the 

 leaves that covered the ground everywhere around. They were partially erect, and 

 . seemed to be but loosely attached to the dead branch, as they trembled with every 

 passing zephyr, and they had a decidedly ragged appearance. I could not see anything 

 that held them to the branch, there was no spider web visible, yet they remained sus- 

 pended. I looked and I wondered, and the more I looked the more I wondered, until 

 at last curiosity overcame my disinclination to exertion, I rose and examined, when I found 

 that I had got a perfect specimen of Cressonia juglandis. The deceptive appearance 

 was so complete that it had never entered my mind to suspect it to be a living creature 

 of any kind. 



These are a few examples illustrative of how resemblance can be protective to the 

 lives of insects against the raids of collectors, but there is a condition that has to be 

 associated with it to render it perfectly effective, and that is complete motionlessness. 

 Let any insect resemble the substance upon which it is resting ever so closely but move 

 it has exposed its individuality and its doom is sealed. Life is associated in the human 

 mind with motion. In this case the parallel between man and the lower animals is 

 exact. A large proportion of the carnivora prefer to secure their food in a living state 

 and for that purpose wait to see it move before seizing it. Travellers inform us that 

 lions and tigers of the jungle will not spring upon a motionless object, and that safety 

 5 EN. 



