costumes. The bodies (abdomens) of some kinds are so extremely slender and 

 long that they are almost unrecognizable as belonging to an animate creature, 

 looking more like grasses, sticks, leaf-stems, etc. Hence it would seem that 

 they might also be subjects for complete mimetic disguise. And in fact, a few 

 of the slenderest kinds have little or no obliterative shading, and present a close 

 mimetic likeness to definite solid details of vegetation. Some of these ' mimics ' 

 are rich brown-red, like many of the sticks and twigs and weed-stems 

 amid which they perch — others ochre-yellow like dead meadow-grasses, — etc. 

 The wings, however, rarely or never contribute to the mimetic effect, but 

 are almost always obliteratively marked, with various blotches and bands of 

 average background color. Among the Agrionidce — less typical dragon- 

 flies which sit with wings folded, vertically and longitudinally — there are 

 probably cases of mimetic resemblance in which the wings play a part. On 

 the other hand, these exquisitely gracile and sometimes gay-hued Agrionidce 

 are often equipped for obliteration — body, wings and all. Some which live 

 always near water, usually perching close to its surface, have fair, bright-blue, 

 obliteratively shaded bodies, which match their average watery backgrounds, 

 under blue sky. Others have black, shadow-like wings, sometimes marked 

 with a few obliterative white spots. On the whole, however, obliterative 

 patterns, especially of the wings, are less in evidence among the Agrionidce 

 than among the Libellulidce or true dragon-flies. 



Obliterative wing-patterns (both dark marks on light, transparent wings 

 and light marks on dusky ones) occur also among some of the groups of plainer- 

 colored Neuroptera, such as the caddises, mantispians, scorpion-flies, ephemera, 

 etc.; though many of these insects, especially the smaller species, lack such 

 markings. Some, on the other hand, are colored throughout much like some 

 of the red or golden brown, obliteratively equipped true dragon-flies. In 

 general, the coloration of the smaller and dingier Neuroptem differs but little 

 from that of the corresponding dipterous insects. Few have highly specialized 

 disguises of either color or form, in the perfect state, though most of them 

 are obliteratively shaded. Nor, with a few exceptions, are the larvae or pupae 



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