IN SNAKES 



391 



tected by fcetid glands, are imitated by various species of stag- 

 horn beetles; other tropical staghom beetles look extremely 

 like certain Curculionidce — the PachyrhynchidcB (sea fig. 103) — 

 which have an integument so hard that insect-eating birds 

 avoid them, probably on that account; other beetles, as, for 

 instance, Charis melipona, resemble true bees ; Odontocera 

 odyneroides resembles a wasp of the genus Odynerus ; the grass- 

 hopper Condylodera tricondyloides is wonderfully like a beetle, 

 Trieondyla of the' family of the Cicindelce. Many flies are 



Fig. 104.— Spiders which mimic ants and live associated with them ; it is very diflBcult 

 to distinguish them. 



very like wasps ; spiders which live associated with ants have 

 assumed the form and colour of the ants (see fig. 104), and Bates 

 mentions a singular instance when a large caterpillar fright- 

 ened him extremely by its extraordinary resemblance to a 

 poisonous snake. Even among Vertebrata, such cases are not 

 rare. Wallace tells us that several species of the poisonous 

 genus Elaps (snakes that are common in Brazil) are closely 

 imitated by quite harmless snakes — thus Elaps fulvius is 

 copied by Fliocerus cequalis ; a variety of Elaps aorallinus — ■ 



