Proceedings of the South African Philosophical Society. xxxi 
wonderful assimilation in shape and colour to their surroundings. 
So perfect is their adaptation that one very rarely can detect the 
individual insect. Personally I have never captured them except 
by artificial means. The number of green species in the collection 
of the South African Museum is the same as that of the grey or 
brown ones. Hxamples of one or two species are either greenish or 
greyish. These Phasnude, like the Mantide, which so often mimic 
them, are green when found on green grass (Phasmus stellenboschus), 
but fuscous or grey when living among dry vegetation or other brown 
surroundings (Phalces coccyx, Palophus haworth, &c.). It is now 
known that the food, especially the chlorophyll of plants, plays an 
important part in the colouration of the adult insect, so that no great 
importance can be attached to the frequent occurrence of green 
individuals. The Stick-Insects that I have been able to observe 
do not make an ootheca, but the eggs are wonderful objects, and 
resemble elongate ribbed seeds or seed-cases ; the eggs of Palophus 
resemble the excrements of the insect. 
The Pnewmoride (Blas op) are exclusively South African. One 
species is pink, the others green; silvery patches are an occasional 
adornment. The two species found in this neighbourhood hide in 
the daytime in grass or among green leaves, and begin their courting 
at night. 
Where green vegetation is of short duration and evergreens are 
rare, as is the case for the greater part of the South African area, 
green orthopterous insects should theoretically be in the minority, 
and I find that the facts bear out the theory. Out of 510 species of 
South African orthopterous insects in the Museum Cabinet only 103, 
1.e., one-fifth, are green. Among these I do not include 9 species in 
which green is only a warning colour. Greys and buffs relieved by 
whitish, maroon, or flavous patches prevail ; even as patches, greenish 
shades are rare. 
The Pamphagid@é represented by numerous species of the South 
African genera, Xuphocera, Akocera, Haplolopha, &c., all have those 
neutral tints harmonising entirely with their surroundings and 
varying in shade merely with the change in the colour of the soil 
of different areas throughout the country, as the Karroo, Griqualand 
West, Bushmanland, Paarl, or Graham’s Town. In Porthetis carinata 
from Namaqualand pure grey is the colour, whereas the same species 
on the Cape Flats shows streaks of green. In all the species of this 
group, save one, the male alone has wings. In the exception alluded 
to, however, the wings of the female are partly atrophied. 
Protective also is the dull brown colour of the wing-covers of the 
AAdipodidous Cosmorhysa, Caloptenus, Acrotylus, and Sphingonotus, 
