212 DARWINISM chap. 



its station ; and it has been seen to capture flies which came 

 to the flowers. 



But the most curious and beautiful case of alluring protec- 

 tion is that of a wingless Mantis in India, which is so formed 

 and coloured as to resemble a pink orchis or some other 

 fantastic flower. The whole insect is of a bright pink colour, 

 the large and oval abdomen looking like the labellum of 

 an orchid. On each side, the two posterior legs have im- 

 mensely dilated and flattened thighs which represent the 

 petals of a flower, while the neck and forelegs imitate the 

 upper sepal and column of an orchid. The insect rests 

 motionless, in this symmetrical attitude, among bright green 

 foliage, being of course very conspicuous, but so exactly 

 resembling a flower that butterflies and other insects settle 

 upon it and are instantly captured. It is a living trap, 

 baited in the most alluring manner to catch the unwary 

 flower-haunting insects. 1 



The Coloration of Birds' Eggs. 



The colours of birds' eggs have long been a difficulty on 

 the theory of adaptive coloration, because, in so many cases 

 it has not been easy to see what can be the use of the par- 

 ticular colours, which are often so bright and conspicuous that 

 they seem intended to attract attention rather than to be con- 

 cealed. A more careful consideration of the subject in all its 

 bearings shows, however, that here too, in a great number of 

 cases, we have examples of protective coloration. When, 

 therefore, we cannot see the meaning of the colour, we may 

 suppose that it has been protective in some ancestral form, 

 and, not being hurtful, has persisted under changed condi- 

 tions which rendered the protection needless. 



We may divide all eggs, for our present purpose, into two 



1 A beautiful drawing of this rare insect, Hymenopus bicornis (in the 

 nymph or active pupa state), was kindly sent me by Mr. Wood-Mason, Curator 

 of the Indian Museum at Calcutta. A species, very similar to it, inhabits Java, 

 where it is said to resemble a pink orchid. Other Mantidae, of the genus 

 Gongylus, have the anterior part of the thorax dilated and coloured either 

 white, pink, or purple ; and they so closely resemble flowers that, according 

 to Mr. Wood -Mason, one of them, having a bright violet-blue prothoracic 

 shield, was found in Pegu by a botanist, and was for a moment mistaken by 

 him for a flower. See Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1878, p. liii. 



