CHAPTER XXVI 



A GLANCE AT INSECTS OTHER THAN LEPIDOPTERA (ORTHOPTERA, COLEOPTERA, 

 HYMENOPTERA, DIPTERA, ETC.), AND AT SPIDERS 



HERE we should be totally overwhelmed by the hugeness of the subject, 

 and foiled by our own ignorance, if we sought to give more than the 

 slightest general sketch of the main prevailing principles. Passing by * the 

 wonderful purely mimetic developments, such as those occurring among 

 insects of the families Mantidce and Phasmidce (walking sticks, leaf insects, 

 mantises that mimic flowers, etc.), which have been studied and described by 

 many naturalists, and with many of which the world at large has long been 

 familiar, we will confine ourselves to a rapid survey of the mass of less 

 obviously remarkable types. Beginning with the three main families of 

 Orthoptera (grasshoppers, locusts, and crickets) we find obliterative shading 

 playing its usual important part, though in less uniformly high development 

 than among vertebrates. Ground-perching locusts {Acrydiida) are all (?) 

 obliteratively shaded, in full, and furnished with ground-picturing patterns, 

 some of which are almost as minutely finished as those of Nighthawks, desert 

 snakes, etc. Some kinds habitually perch on rocks, and have true and fine 

 rock-patterns, much like the Nighthawk's. Others, again, resorting much 

 to sand, and bare, dry earth, have more sandy-peppered patterns, like that 

 of the Puff Adder. Somewhat more brightly colored, as a rule, are the 

 many species which habitually perch on or amidst terrestrial vegetation. They 

 are flecked and patched, banded and striped, with grass- and ground-weed 

 tints — green, yellowish, red, olive, brown, and black, in more or less general- 

 ized picture- patterns (or sometimes more crudely 'ruptive' ones). Lo- 

 * As we ignore, for the present, all questions of ' live '-mimicry among these insects. 



198 



