CHAPTER VIII. 



MIMIOEY AND WARNING COLOURS IN GRASSHOPPEES. 



There is in La Plata a large liandsome grasshopper 

 (Zoniopoda tarsata), the habits of which in its larva 

 and imago stages are in strange contrast, like those 

 in certain lepidoptera, in which the caterpillars form 

 societies and act in concert. The adult has a 

 greenish protective colouring, brown and green 

 banded thighs, bright red hind wings, seen only 

 during flight. It is solitary and excessively shy in 

 its habits, living always in concealment among the 

 dense foliage near the surface of the ground. The 

 young are intensely black, like grasshoppers cut 

 out of jet or ebony, and gregarious in habit, living 

 in bands of forty or fifty to three or four hundred ; 

 and so little shy, that they may sometimes be taken 

 up by handfuls before they begin to scatter in 

 alarm. Their gregarious habits and blackness — of 

 all hues in nature the most obvious to the sight — 

 would alone be enough to make them the most 

 conspicuous of insects ; but they have still other 

 habits which appear as if specially designed to 

 bring them more prominently into notice. Thus, 

 they all keep so close together at all times as to 

 have their bodies actually touching, and whoa 



