THE COLORATION OF ANIMALS 



83 



signs of life again, and makes oflF hastily, to find a better hiding- 

 place. The colouring of this moth is so curiously mingled — 

 brown, whitish, black, and yellow — and traced with acute-angled 

 lines and curves, that one cannot distinguish it at sight from a bit of 

 rotten wood. I experienced that 

 myself once when, passing a 

 hedge, I thought I saw a 

 Xylina sitting on the ground, 

 and picked it up to examine it. 

 I thought it was a bit of wood, 

 and, disappointed, I threw it 

 down again on the grass, but 

 then I felt uncertain, and picked 

 it up once more — to find that it 

 was a moth after all ^ ! 



This case of Xylina is hardly 

 less remarkable, and its likeness 

 to the mimicked object is scarcely 

 less wonderful than that of the 

 often discussed mimicry of a leaf, 

 with stalk, midrib, and lateral 

 veins, by many of the forest 

 butterflies of South America and 

 India. 



The best known of these is 

 the Indian Kallima paralecta, 

 which, when it settles, is decep- 

 tively like a dead leaf, or rather 

 like a dry or a half-withered 

 one, on which brown alternates 

 with red, and on which there 

 are one or two translucent spots, 

 without scales, presumably representing dewdrops. The upper surface 

 of this butterfly is simply marked, but gorgeously coloured— blue-black 



' E6sel says in this connexion : ' The marvellous form of this Papilio presei-ves it 

 from injuries, for, when he hangs freely on a trunk of a tree, he would be taken ten 

 times sooner for a piece of bark than for a living creature. By day, too, he is so little 

 sensitive, that if he be thrown down from his resting-place he falls to the ground as 

 if lifeless, and remains lying motionless. One may also throw him into the air, or 

 turn him about, and he will rarely give a sign of life. I have impaled many of them 

 on needles, without seeing any sign of sensitiveness on their part. This is the more 

 remarkable that these birds (sic), after they have submitted to all the torment and misery 

 one can inflict on them, without showing any sign of feeling, will, whenever they are 

 left in peace and have no further disturbances to fear, quickly creep off to a dark 

 corner and attempt to conceal themselves from future attacks.' — Insektenbelustigungen, 

 Nurnberg, 1746, vol. i. p. 52. 



Fig. 13. Kallima paralecta, from India, 

 right under side of the butterfly at rest. 

 K, head. Li, maxillary palps. B, limbs. V, 

 anterior wing. S, posterior wing. St, ' tail ' 

 of the latter, corresponding to the stalk of 

 the leaf, gl^ and gP, transparent spots. Avfl, 

 eye-spots. Sch, mould-spots. 



