406 MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 
which it usually sits in the day-time, that you may have the leaf in your 
hand and yet not discover it.1— The tribe of grass-hoppers called Locuste 
by Fabricius, though the true Locust does not belong to it, in the veining, 
colour, and texture of their elytra, resemble green leaves.? — The tribe of 
Phasmina — named praying-insects and spectres —also of the Orthoptera 
order, often exhibit the same peculiarity.—Others of them, by the spots and 
mixtures of colour observable in these organs, represent leaves that are 
decaying in various degrees. — Those of several species of Mantide like. 
wise imitate dry leaves, and so exactly, by their opacity, colour, rigidity, 
and veins, that, were no other part of the animal visible even after a close 
examination, it would be generally affirmed to be nothing but a dry leaf, 
Of this nature is the Phyllium siccifolium, and two or three Brazilian species 
in my cabinet, that seem undescribed, which I will show you when you 
give me an opportunity. But these imitations of dry leaves are not con- 
fined to the Orthoptera order solely. Amongst the Hemiptera, the Phyllo. 
morpha paradoxa, a kind of bug, surprised Sparrman not a little. He was 
sheltering himself from the mid-day sun when the air was so still and calm 
as scarcely to shake an aspen leaf, and saw with wonder what he mistook 
for a little withered, pale, crumpled leaf, eaten as it were by caterpillars, 
fluttering from the tree. The sight appeared to him so very extraordinary, 
that he left his place of shelter to contemplate it more nearly ; and could 
scarcely believe his eyes, when he beheld a living insect, in shape and 
colour resembling a fragment of a withered leaf with the edges turned up 
and eaten away as it were by caterpillars, and at the same time all over 
beset with prickles. — A British insect, one of our largest moths (Gastro- 
pacha quercifolia), called by collectors the Lappet moth, affords an example 
from the Lepidoptera order of the imitation in question, its wings repre- 
senting, both in shape and colour, an arid brown leaf. Some bugs, belong- 
ing to the genus Dictyonota of Mr. Curtis*, simulate portions of leaves in 
a still farther state of decay, when the veins only are left ; for, the thorax 
and elytra of these insects being reticulated, with the little areas or meshes 
of the net-work transparent, this circumstance gives them exactly the ap- 
pearance of small fragments of skeletons of leaves. 
But you have probably heard of most of these spécies of imitation: I 
hope, therefore, you will give credit to the two instances to which I shall 
next call your attention, of insects that even mimic flowers and fruit. With 
respect to the former, I recollect to have seen, in a collection made by Mr. 
Mason at the Cape of Good Hope, a species of the orthopterous genus 
Pneumora, the elytra of which were of a rose or pink colour, which shroud- 
ing its vesiculose abdomen, gave it much the appearance of a fine flower.— 
A most beautiful and brilliant beetle, of the genus Chlamys (Ch. Bacca), 
found by capeain Hancock in Brazil, by the inequalities of its ruby-coloured 
surface, strikingly resembles some kinds of fruit-— And to make the series 
of imitations complete, a minute black beetle, with ridges upon its elytra 
(Onthophilus sulcatus ®), when lying without motion, is very like the seed 
of an umbelliferous plant. The dog-tick is not unlike a small bean; which 
1 Brahm, Jnsecten Kalender, ii. 383. a 
2 Hence we have Locusta citrifolia, laurifolia, camellifolia, eye fatleh salvifolia, 
&c., which, I believe, all belong to a genus | have named Pterophylla. 
5 Voyage, &e. ii. 16. Westw. Arc. Ent. Puate II. 
4 Brit. Ent. t. 164, 5 Oliv. Zntomolog. i, no. 8. 17. 
