LEAF AND STICK INSECTS. 



93 



touch to determine the point. Some are small and 

 slender like the most delicate twigs ; others again have 

 wings ; and it is curious that these wings are often beauti- 

 fully coloured, generally bright pink, sometimes yellow, 

 and sometimes finely banded with black ; but when at 

 rest these wdngs fold up so as to be completely concealed 

 under the narrow wing-covers, and the whole insect is then 

 green or brown, and almost invisible among the twigs or 

 foliage. To increase the resemblance to vegetation, some 

 of these Phasmas have small green processes in various 

 parts of their bodies looking exactly like moss. These 

 inhabit damp forests both in the Malay islands and in 

 America, and they are so marvellously like moss-grown 

 twigs that the closest examination is needed to satisfy 

 oneself that it is really a living insect we are looking at. 



Many of the locusts are equally well- disguised, some 

 resembling green leaves, others those that are brown and 

 dead ; and the latter often have small transparent spots on 

 the wings, looking like holes eaten through them. That 

 these disguises deceive their natural enemies is certain, 

 for otherwise the Phasmidse would soon be exterminated. 

 They are large and sluggish, and very soft and succulent ; 

 they have no means of defence or of flight, and they are 

 eagerly devoured by numbers of birds, especially by the 

 numerous cuckoo tribe, whose stomachs are often full of 

 them ; yet numbers of them escape destruction, and this 

 can only be due to their vegetable disguises. Mr. Belt 

 records a curious instance of the actual operation of 

 this kind of defence in a leaf-like locust, wdiich 

 remained perfectly quiescent in the midst of a host of 

 insectivorous ants, which ran over it without finding out 

 that it was an insect and not a leaf! It might have 



