True Tales of the Insects

But as compared with those of the walking-sticks, all these adventitious lobes are less indented; they are plainer and more defined, and the body is never covered with spines, properly so called.

At a glance one may recognize the genus Chceradodls, by the great membrane which extends from each side, and occupies the length of the long prothorax (see

Fig. 9). These insects are present not only in tropical America, as in Costa Rica, Guayaquil, New Granada, Ecuador, and Brazil, but in India, including Ceylon; and the flattened shape of Chccradociis rhouibicollis, its colour a delicate green, in part of a pale red almost yellow, the large flat, rhomboidal prothoracic dilation, with the lateral angles rounded, the long narrow opaque green leaf-life elytra, the transparent wings, the somewhat denticulate anterior legs,—these features all combine to make an insect as odd as it is interesting.

The genus Deroplatys, which is apparently exclusively Asiatic, replacing in the ancient world the genus Acanthops, is divided into two kinds, in virtue of its strange leaf-like prothoracic appendage. It may be large towards the front and small behind, in which case the form is often quite grotesque; or the reverse, it attains the greatest size at the posterior end, and is more or less triangular, but the shape often differs in the two sexes. Deroplatys tntncata (see F'ig. 10), a species that must be relegated to the latter class, is to be met with in

Singapore, at the extremity of the Malay Peninsula, in Borneo, and Java; dessicata belonging to the first class, in Malacca and Java; and Sumatra is another island that gives birth to these i d CE. m a n t Their colour dried is a greenish yellow and brown fe u i 1 1 e m o r t. Among the females especial 1 y, the elytra have a Fig. io.—Deroplatys tniiicata, from Borneo. variable form, being sometimes large, truncated, and rounded, sometimes longer and pointed, the edges, as we have seen, often irregular, while the wings, coloured and frequently ornamented with beautiful spots and arched bands, may suddenly narrow into a kind of little tail, reaching beyond the elytra in repose, as in t^'iLucaia. The thighs of the second and third pair of legs carry at

Fig. II. Gongylus trachelophyllus, with numerous foliaceous lobes.

their extremity foliaceous dilatations, and the abdomen is dilated and possessed of small projections. These insects, in the form and structure of the elytra, by the lobes on the sides of the abdomen, and their colour like a faded leaf, and in other ways, approach near to the Acanthops. In the genus Gongylus the prothorax is wonderfully elongated, as it were into a slender stem, but dilated in leaf form above the anterior legs; the head terminates in a double leaflet; the elytra widen abruptly at the are longer and demi-membranous among thebase—they males, opaque among the females; the thighs of the two posterior pairs of legs carry at their extremity three rounded lobes; and the abdomen is expanded (see

Fig. 11).

Alluring Colouration and Aggressive Mimicry.

The Special Aggressive Resemblance of mantidse disguise is used for moreassumes yet another phase—the than concealment, and does more than hide the insect from its prey; it may even serve as a direct means of securing the latter, attracting them by simulating some object which is to them of particular value. Such appearances, which observation has failed to discover in many cases besides the Mantidae in the realm of insects, Dr. Wallace

calls Alluring- Colouration, and they constitute some of the most curious and interestino- forms of aCToressive resemblance. One of the most beautiful and remarkable examples is that of a wingless Indian mantis [Hyinenopits bicornis), of great rarity, which, both in colour and form, resembles an orchid, or some similarly fantastic flower. The whole insect is brilliantly pink. Its large and oval abdomen represents the labellum of an orchid, and the thighs of the four posterior legs are immensely dilated and flattened into broad, pear-shaped plates, the apparent petals of a blossom; so that when seated motionless, as is its wont, amid bright green foliage, with thorax and abdomen raised at right angles to one another, with the forelegs drawn out of sight under the thorax, and the four expanded thighs of the other legs spread out two on each side, it is conspicuous, of course, but presents a complete and deceptive imitation of a gay-hued flower. Here colour, form, and attitude all conspire, in an inimitable manner, to produce the resemblance. Of the meaning of the resemblance there can be no doubt. Insects seem attracted to the mantis, as insects to flowers; they settle upon it, and are instantly captured. A very similar species, which, when at rest, lying in wait for its prey, exactly resembles a pink orchid, inhabits Java. This mantis is said to feed especially on butterflies, so that by its imitation of a flower, the insect it feeds

; in fact, " it ison will actually be attracted towards it really a living- trap, and forms its own bait."

Equally interesting" instances of the striking simulation to flowers are exhibited by Indian Mantidas of the genus Gongylus, the floral resemblance, by deceiving and attracting insects, serving to secure for the pupal mantidae a supply of food. With regard to their under surface, the leaf-like prothoracic expansion is coloured either white, or a pale bluish-violet, inclining to mauve, and acquiring a reddish tinge towards the margins, so as to resemble a flower with a white or a purple corolla, and both species have the same blackish-brown blotch in the centre, thus resembling the opening of a tube in the middle of the corolla of a flower. A specimen having a bright violet-blue thoracic shield was found in Pegu, by the late Mr. S. Kurz, and its resemblance to a flower for a moment deceived the practised eyes of the botanist. The resemblance of mantida^ to the excreta of birds is also of use to the insects for aggressive purposes, since flies are known to be attracted by such droppings. One mantis closely resembles the white ants on which

it rare phenomenon feeds—an instance of the somewhat of Aggressive Mimicry.

TRUE TALES OF THE INSECTS.

Geooraphical Dislribiitiou.

The mantidse appertain essentially to the warm countries of the world, being especially abundant in the tropics, and becoming fewer towards high latitudes; they do not go beyond the temperate regions, and never penetrate to the cold parts; to speak more precisely, as a whole they hardly pass the 46" of latitude in the southern hemisphere, the 48° to the north, so that they do not occur in England. In North America they seem to stop in Pennsylvania, and there are few species in the Southern States; in South America they reach the confines of Patagonia. In Europe, so far as the central portion is concerned, while they are usually arrested on the northern slope of the Alps, this is not invariably the case, for during the last century Mantis religiosa was common to the environs of Ratisbon, though to-day it might be looked for there in vain. Several species are met with in the south of France, and the mildness of climate in Western Europe permits of the insects spreading along the coast-line to Normandy. Being neither travellers nor vagrants, seas, generally speaking, seem to offer an insuperable barrier to their advance, and the different forms that serve as types mav be said to remain attached to the reo^ions where

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they are developed; the geooraphical distribution of these insects, in fact, is distinguished for this trait—the tendency towards Ibcahzation of the genera to the different continents. In this way the distribution is very clearly defined. Thus, in America the genera belong for the most part exclusively to the New World, and differ from those of the Old World; and in the latter, by the side of widespread genera, others are peculiar to Africa, or to Asia, or to Australia, and to the Isles of the Pacific. Of the genera represented in the two hemispheres, their number is sufficiently restricted that it may be said they are exceptions to the common rule. There are the genera Ameles and Iris, found both in America and in the Mediterranean regions Liturgousa and Cardioptera appear in America and in Southern Africa; Miopteryx in America and Asia; and lastly, the American Thespis crop up in Africa and in Asia in the shape of Oxythespis. It will be remarked that while Ameles and Iris are of the Old World types, which may have passed to America, Liturgousa, Cardioptera, and Thespis have a real American stamp, and seem rather to have emigrated from America to Africa, at an epoch more or less remote.

Distinctly, America appears to possess fewer genera and species than the Oriental hemisphere, and it is in Asia, particularly in the Moluccas and the Isles of Sunda, that the family seems to be most richly represented.

Mantis religiosa, which has been often mentioned, a sufficiently pretty, though not striking mantis, is full of interest to us, as being the species best known near home, across the Channel, to our neighbours in France. In all the south of that country it is common, but is rarer in the north, reaching Saintes, La Rochelle, Dijon, and the coast of Normandy as far as Havre; and it lias been taken occasionally near Paris, at Fontainebleau, etc. It occurs in.Spain, Italy, and.Sicily, frequently in the fields and gardens of Tuscany. Passing through .South and Mid Germany, Southern and Eastern Russia, and South.Siberia, it penetrates to the Orient shores of Asia, at Ning-po, China. It is likewise abundant in Algeria, and is found all along the northern coast of Africa.

CHAPTER HI.

WALKING-STICKS AND WALKING-LEAVES (PHASMID^:).

General Peculiarities.

These insects, constituting the family Phasmidre, are amongst the most curious of natural objects. They are most extraordinary in appearance; even more grotesque than the IMantida;. Frequently they are of great size, some attaining nine inches, and a foot in length: their variety of form is almost infinite. Their names, both popular and systematic, arise from their singular resemblance to vegetable structures; some, long and cylindrical, look exactl}' like sticks or stems of grass; some micrht be mistaken for moss-oTOwn twio-s; some for lichen-covered bark; while others are invested with spines, like thorns. The imitative resemblance of those known as the Phylliides to leaves is marvellous. It will be well first to take a rapid survey of the more prominent features of their remarkable body.

Contrary to what exists among the Mantidae and other carnivorous Orthoptera, the head is ovoid, thick, and has

a horizontal direction, or depressed towards the base, the mouth always directed somewhat forward; with the eyes more or less prominent, but ocelli in the majority of species wanting. While the prothorax is always small, shorter than the head, undergoing, strange to say, but little elongation even in species most linear and elongate in form, the mesothorax often assumes an extraordinary length. It may be six times as long as the prothorax, and generally likewise exceeds the length of the metathorax. This extension relatively to the other two thoracic segments is peculiar, since in other groups where it occurs there are powerful mesothoracic wings, whereas the Phasmid^e are noted for the absence or curtailment of these particular appendages. When present, this segment carries them and the second pair of legs only at its posterior extremity, and in like fashion the third pair of legs is attached to the metathorax. Except in the case of the Phylliides, the hind body, or abdomen, is also elongated. Entirely ambulatory, the legs vary much in the details of their shape. Ordinarily the anterior pair is the longest, and the femora often have the basal part compressed; and they are so formed as to stretch out in entire juxtaposition in front of the head, concealing it in large measure, and entirely enclosing the antennse. There is an arolium or membranous cushion between the claws of the five-jointed tarsi, enabling them to adhere firmly to plants.