96 MIMICRY, AND OTHER PROTECTIVE 
imitate other insects, and insects of other orders imi- 
tate beetles. 
Charis melipona, a South American Longicorn of 
the family Necydalide, has been so named from its 
resemblance to a small bee of the genus Melipona. 
It is one of the most remarkable cases of mimicry, 
since the beetle has the thorax and body densely hairy 
like the bee, and the legs are tufted in a manner most 
unusual in the order Coleoptera. Another Lorgicorn, 
Odontocera odyneroides, has the abdomen banded with 
yellow, and constricted at the base, and is altogether 
so exactly like a small common wasp of the genus Ody- 
nerus, that Mr. Bates informs us he was afraid to take it 
out of his net with his fingers for fear of being stung. 
Had Mr. Bates’s taste for insects been less omnivorous 
than it was, the beetle’s disguise might have saved it 
from his pin, as it had no doubt often done from the 
beak of hungry birds. A larger insect, Sphecomorpha 
chalybea, is exactly like one of the large metallic blue 
wasps, and like them has the abdomen connected with 
the thorax by a pedicel, rendering the deception. most 
complete and striking. Many Eastern species of Lon- ' 
gicorns of the genus Oberea, when on the wing ex- 
actly resemble Tenthredinide, and many of the small 
species of Hesthesis run about on timber, and cannot 
be distinguished from ants. There is one genus of 
South American Longicorns that appears to mimic 
the shielded bugs of the genus Scutellera. The Gym- 
nocerous capucinus is one of these, and is very 
like Pachyotris fabricii, one of the Scutelleride. The 
