220 MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 
A numerous host of our little animals escape from birds 
and other assailants by imitating the colour of the plants, 
or parts of them, which they inhabit; or the twigs of 
shrubs and trees; their foliage, flowers, and fruit. Many 
of the mottled moths, which take their station of diurnal 
repose on the north side of the trunks of trees, are with 
difficulty distinguished from the gray and green lichens 
that cover them. Of this kind are Noctua aprilina and 
Psi, ¥. The caterpillar of N. Alge, F. when it feeds on 
the yellow Lichen juniperinus, 1s always yellow ; but when 
upon the gray Lichen saxatilis its hue becomes gray*. 
This change is probably produced by the colour of its 
food. Phryganea atra, a kind of may-fly, frequents the 
black flower-spikes of the common sedge (Carex riparia), 
which fringes the banks of our rivers. I have often been 
unable to distinguish it from them, and the birds pro- 
bably often make the same mistake and pass it by.—A 
jumping bug, very similar to one figured by Schellenberg °, 
also much resembles the lichens of the oak on which I 
took it, 
The Spectre tribe (Phasma, Licht.) go still further in 
this mimicry, representing a small branch with its spray. 
I have one from Brazil eight inches long, that, unless it 
was seen to move, could scarcely be conceived to be any 
thing else; the legs, as well as the head, having their little 
snags and knobs, so that noimitation can be more accurate. 
Perhaps this may be the species mentioned by Molina‘, 
which the natives of Chili call “The Devil’s Horse4.” 
@ Fabr. Vorlesungen, 321. > Cimic. Helvet ot. Wiz fed. 
¢ Hist. of Chili, i. 172. 
4 Since the first edition of this volume was printed, a lady from the 
West Indies looking at my cabinet, upon being shown this inseet, ex~ 
claimed “ Oh, thatis The Devil’s Horse 
