THE LOCUST FAMILY. 
4 7 
THE WALKING-STICK. 
This is one of the oddest of all insects. There is 
something weird and uncanny about it. 
It is rightly named for it very closely resembles 
a stick. When seen, it may 
easily be passed by as a dry, 
dead twig. In barns these 
creatures may often be seen 
among the hay looking pre¬ 
cisely like pieces of dead grass. 
This imitation is carried out 
further in the fact that in 
spring when everything is 
green, these creatures also are 
green; but later in the season 
when vegetation is taking on 
a different hue, they also 
change color and assume dull 
gray or brown. In movement 
they are very slow, so slow 
that one must watch them 
constantly and for a long 
while to see that, they have 
moved at all. But this slow- 
r , • . r Fig. 27.—Walking-stick, 
ness ot movement is part ot b 
their protection against enemies. They can move 
with great rapidity when they like and often are 
found to be very difficult to catch. 
The thorax is not fused into one segment but 
