MIMICRY. 455 



seized cautiously, and disabled before being swallowed."* This 

 certainly seems to be very negative evidence. The well-known 

 British Moth, Lasiocampa quercifolia, affects a resting position 

 which " makes it appear exactly like a dead leaf. One is walking 

 along, maybe, when his attention is attracted to a dead brown leaf 

 hanging on a blackthorn bush, suspended by a slender stalk, and 

 swaying to and fro in the air with every passing breeze. You 

 feel satisfied it can be nothing but a rich purplish-brown leaf, and 

 yet your trained eye is hardly satisfied ; and as you slowly take 

 in the outline, and put your finger beneath the supposed stalk of 

 the leaf, another slender stalk is gradually pushed up, and a 

 Lappet Moth dangles from your finger/' f Here the expression 

 "trained eye" of the entomologist would suggest a more de- 

 veloped " trained eye " of the moth's natural enemies, and hence 

 any theory of protective mimicry is much discounted. Should 

 such a theory be advanced, the instance would probably be more 

 applicable to conscious or active mimicry, to be discussed later 

 on. The same author gives a subsequent illustration which 

 seems capable of the same comment. Another of our moths 

 (Orgyia antiqua) has an apterous female, and in this condition, 

 " seated on her cocoon after emergence, she looks so exactly like 

 a Spider that only practical entomologists recognize her ; she lays 

 her eggs on the web, and never stirs." + Dr. Sharp has remarked 

 on the eggs of Phasmidce that nearly everyone who mentions 

 them speaks of their extreme resemblance to seeds. " Goldie 

 has suggested that this is for the purpose of deceiving Ichneu- 

 mons ; it is, however, on record that the eggs are actually 

 destroyed by Ichneumons." Not only do the eggs have a history 

 like that of seeds, and resemble them in appearance, but their 

 capsule, in minute structure, greatly resembles vegetable tissue. § 

 Again he states : — " The egg of a Phasmid has not only a general 

 resemblance in size, shape, colour, and external texture to a seed, 

 but the anatomical characters of certain seeds are reproduced on 



* ' The Colours of Animals,' p. 246. 



f J. W. Tutt, ' British Moths,' pp. 61-2. 



I Ibid. p. 91. — The italics are our own. " Practical entomologists," in 

 the struggle for existence, and in the sense here meant, naturally includes 

 the insect's enemies, whose sustenance depends upon their practical know- 

 ledge. 



§ ' Cambridge Nat. Hist.' vol. v. p. 265, 



