538 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



stands out bare and dry. As the little thing advances it cuts up 

 much more of the leaf than it eats, and these crumbs, with other 

 refuse, are gradually accumulated, and loosely bound together 

 with silk till they form a breastwork across the whole breadth of 

 the leaf. Behind this rampart of refuse, of which its brown and 

 ragged form seems to be a portion, the little architect lives, pushing 

 the work back from day to day as it eats on."* Kirby and Spence 

 pointed out many instances of the same active and intelligent 

 mimicry. " Of this description is a little water-beetle (Elophorus 

 aquaticus), which is always found covered with mud, and so when 

 feeding at the bottom of a pool or pond can scarcely be dis- 

 tinguished by the predaceous aquatic insects from the soil on 

 which it rests. Another very minute insect of the same order 

 (Limnius ceneus), that is found in rivulets under stones and the 

 like, sometimes conceals its elytra with a thick coating of sand 

 that becomes nearly as hard as stone." " A species of a minute 

 coleopterous genus (Georyssus areniferns). which lives in wet 

 spots where tbe Toad-rush (Juncus bufonius) grows, covers itself 

 with sand ; and another nearly related to it (Chcetophorus creti- 

 ferus, K.), which frequents chalk, whitens itself all over with that 

 substance. As this animal when clean is very black, were it 

 not for this manoeuvre it would be too conspicuous upon its 

 white territory to have any chance of escape from the birds and 

 its other assailants." t 



Many examples of active mimicry are exhibited by our British 

 moths, as may be learned by consulting the pages of Mr. Barrett's 

 excellent work on the ' Lepidoptera of the British Islands.' Thus 

 Eriogaster lanestris is an instance, for " even when sitting on a 

 hawthorn spray it so accurately mimics a dead leaf twisted round 

 the twig that it becomes almost impossible of recognition."! 

 Cerurafurcula sits in the daytime " on the trunk, or more usually 

 on a branch, of one of its food-trees, its outstretched downy legs 

 and grey markings giving it a most deceptive likeness to an 

 entangled downy feather, or even a more close resemblance to a 

 ripe sallow catkin from which the downy seeds are bursting."§ 



* Eha, ' A Naturalist on the Prowl,' pp. 127-8. 



f ' Introd. Entomology,' 7th edit. pp. 424-5. 



I ' The Lepidoptera of the British Islands,' vol. iii. p. 12. 



§ Ibid. p. 89, 



