ON MIMICRY AND DECEPTION 



some of the writers have gone so far as to express a belief 

 that this resemblance has been effected by the will and 

 design of the creatures themselves : for instance, that a 

 caterpillar can select for its hiding-place a spot upon which 

 it assumes the cocoon state and assumes the colour of the 

 surrounding object as a means of concealment ; much in 

 the same way as the chameleon or many other reptiles and 

 fishes. How far this may be the case remains to be con- 

 sidered ; but an equally remarkable resemblance may be 

 found in organisms far below the vertebrate or invertebrate 

 animal kingdom. In walking through the woods in Surrey 

 or Sussex in the month of September, when the surface of 

 the ground is covered with the clean-washed flints, it is 

 difiicult and almost impossible to distinguish the flints 

 from a fungus that crops up among them, varied in form 

 and presenting a whitish surface, and not only looking like 

 a flint in its perfect state, but when broken up you may 

 observe not only the thin white coating like the flint, but 

 the black or dark-coloured inside, so closely resembling a 

 flint in all but the hardness that one could not help call- 

 ing to mind the remarks of others upon the so-called 

 mimicry of one natural object to another. 



These resemblances are found abundantly in vertebrate 

 animals, but among the lower forms they are endless. 

 Many of the species of Polyzoa, for instance, assume the 

 form and colour of sea-weed, moss, or corals. Again, 

 among Orthoptera, we find in the family Phasmidce, or stick 

 insects, such wonderful likenesses to dry bits of stick, as 

 almost pass belief, and are only equalled by the family of 

 leaf insects, of which Phyllmm scythe is a good example, 

 not only in colour but form, which together with the veins 

 and branching of the leaf are most singularly represented. 

 In other instances, among insects we find the caterpillars 

 of the family Geometridoi so closely imitating a part of the 



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