Ill 
ANIMAL LIFE IN THE TROPICAL FORESTS 
287 
Mantidse — usually called “praying insects,” from their habit of 
sitting with their long fore-feet held up as if in prayer — are 
really tigers among insects, lying in wait for their prey, which 
they seize with their powerful serrated fore-feet. They are 
usually so coloured as to resemble the foliage among which 
they live, and as they sit quite motionless, they are not easily 
perceived. 
The Phasmidse are perfectly inoffensive leaf-eating insects of 
very varied forms ; some being broad and leaf-like, while others 
are long and cylindrical, so as to resemble sticks, whence they 
are often called walking-stick insects. The imitative resem- 
blance of some of these insects to the plants on which they 
live is marvellous. The true leaf-insects of the East, forming 
the genus Phyllium, are the size of a moderate leaf, which their 
large wing-covers and the dilated margins of the head, thorax, 
and legs cause them exactly to resemble. The veining of the 
wings and their green tint exactly correspond to that of the 
leaves of their food-plant ; and as they rest motionless during 
the day, only feeding at night, they the more easily escape 
detection. In Java they are often kept alive on a branch of 
the guava tree ; and it is a common thing for a stranger, when 
asked to look at this curious insect, to inquire where it is, and 
on being told that it is close under his eyes, to maintain that 
there is no insect at all, but only a branch with green leaves. 
The larger wingless stick-insects are often eight inches to 
a foot long. They are abundant in the Moluccas ; hanging on 
the shrubs that line the forest-paths ; and they resemble sticks 
so exactly, in colour, in the small rugosities of the bark, in the 
knots and small branches, imitated by the joints of the legs 
which are either pressed close to the body, or stuck out at 
random, that it is absolutely impossible, by the eye alone, to 
distinguish the real dead twigs which fall down from the trees 
overhead, from the living insects. The writer has often looked 
at them in doubt, and has been obliged to use the sense of 
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 are often beautifully coloured, generally 
bright pink, sometimes yellow, and sometimes finely banded 
with black ; but when at rest the wings fold up so as to be 
completely concealed under the narrow wing-covers, and the 
