226 CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER 



sprightly and alert, taking to the wing at the slightest 

 impulse, in his love-making he is most deliberate, courtly 

 and formal, the consummation of it all continuing for 

 several days. So we see that the character of the snake 

 which the female plays with so much art is not disturbed 

 during the most emotional period of her existence. Nature 

 holds the mirror to herself with inimitable skill. While the 

 male takes long flights, those of the female are short and 

 uncertain and seldom voluntary. Immediately she alights 

 the anterior legs are extended, the head is depressed 

 between the thighs, and the legs which are at liberty 

 become as rigid as twigs. Among the branches of a shrub 

 her action is cautious and stealthy ; but the stick insect is 

 seldom to be caught napping. It is very wide awake when 

 it plays the dual part of a sleepy snake and four crooked 

 twigs. In youth, the colouring of the female is ashy green, 

 almost exactly the tint of the most common of arboreal 

 snakes, and at the time of life when it is less able to defend 

 itself it seems to spend all its days in the snake-like 

 posture. 



In some respects this insect resembles the Mantis 

 religiosa ; but it does not seem to possess the voracious 

 appetite of that insect, which assumes the supplicatory atti- 

 tude that it may the more readily seize its prey. Indeed, 

 although two specimens were under observation for three 

 months, at morning, noon and eve, I only once saw one 

 eating, and then it was partaking sparingly of orange- 

 leaves. The insect is well-known as a vegetarian, but the 

 manner of its feeding is singular. The part that it takes 

 of a motionless snake would be ineffective if the head 

 moved while eating, and Nature provides against any 

 blundering of that sort. The edge of a leaf is guided to 

 the mouth, which appears to open vertically — not horizon- 

 tally as mouths usually do — by a set of palpi or feelers, 

 three on each side. The palpi move the leaf along, the 

 while a crescent-shaped strip is rapidly nibbled away. 

 Then they move the leaf back again to the original starting 

 point, and another crescent is devoured, and so on, while the 



