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THE WORLD OF ANIMAL LIFE 



Caterpillar resembling twig 



Butterfly resembling leaf 



When a looper caterpillar wishes to move, it takes a firm hold 

 with the six true legs, which are situated close to its head, and 

 draws up its body until it has assumed the loop-like form already 

 referred to. Then gripping its support with the claspers at the 

 tail-end, it straightens out its body, and takes fresh hold with its 

 legs, drawing its body up after it as before, and the process is re- 

 peated again and again. 

 Some species of 

 looper caterpillar are 

 remarkable for their 

 wonderful resemblance 

 to twigs and pieces of 

 stick, which is much in- 

 creased by their habit 

 of clinging to a small 

 branch with the claspers 

 only, and stretching out 

 their bodies, rigid and 

 motionless, as though 

 they were growing out 

 of it. As if to add to 

 the deception, too, their 

 bodies are swollen out 

 at intervals into small 

 lumps and knobs, that 

 look just like those 

 which mark the spot on a twig where the new leaves are about 

 to appear. In one or two caterpillars these knobs are tipped with 

 light green, which causes them to look as if the buds were opening. 

 Doubtless this strange power of mimicry, which they possess in 

 common with many other insects, often preserves these caterpillars 

 from the attacks of birds, and perhaps from other enemies as well. 

 Nature has taken care, too, to colour their bodies in accordance 

 with the hues of their food-plants, so that even the sharpest eye 

 has difficulty in detecting them unless they move. 



These caterpillars possess silk - glands somewhat like those 

 of the spiders, but with this difference, that while the thread 



Insect resembling piece of stick 

 Some Instances of Insect Mimicry 



