Vegetable and Animal 
The camel is not indigenous in Australia, and one can 
only trust that the kangaroo is so foolish as not to be 
able to pick out the nutritious Loranthus leaves from 
amongst the astringent acacia foliage. 
The resemblance of some insects when at rest to a leaf 
or a stick is most remarkable. This is an old story, and 
in every sense, for it was Commerson in the eighteenth 
century who first called attention to the exact leaf-like 
pattern of some of the creatures found by him. More- 
over, an insect apparently allied to our cockroaches 
existed in the Carboniferous period, whose wings in the 
shape and veining closely copy the leaflets of a common 
fossil (Neuropteris) of that time? 
There is a difficulty often brought up against the 
usual theory about such mimetic resemblances, which is 
that in the early stages, before the similarity was perfect, 
they could not possibly be of any use. That objection, 
however, is not so much felt by field naturalists as by 
those who conduct their inquiries in a public library. 
In going through the dry, yellowish-brown grass near 
Lake Albert Edward Nyanza, I rose a grasshopper-like 
creature which alighted on a withered grass haulm and 
was at once invisible. Its mode of resting aped exactly 
the hang of the withered spikelets, and the colour of such 
part of its wings and legs as were exposed were pre- 
cisely that of the withered vegetation. 
Such incipient colour resemblances and imperfect 
mimicries are very abundant. 
A far more important point, however, is the close 
and intimate relation which exists between animals and 
plants when considered as diners and dinners, 
It is not often realised how greatly the animal world 
stimulates and improves the vegetation. It is not only 
-man that can make two blades of grass develop where 
only one had grown before. Worms which feed upon 
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