with the lepidoptera. Not only have many of the larvæ or caterpillars the power of varying their external colour to those of the plants on which they feed, but even the fully developed insect is similarly protected. Many of those little moths, the Tineidæ, when settled on a leaf, look like the droppings of birds. Others, when their wings are folded, have that prolongation which has given some of them their names, as our "Swallow-tail," so leaning

Fig. 108.

Fig. 109.

Egg of the Cabbage Moth.

Egg of the Common Magpie
Moth.

The

against the plant on which the insect is resting, that they look like a leaf with its footstalk. colours of the wings, also, and the mottlings, have in many cases a similar protective function. None have better shown this wonderful adaptation of butterflies and moths to the circumstances of their existence than Messrs. Wallace and Bates. In Fig. 110 is an illustration of the common Orange-Tip butterfly (Anthocharis cardamines) at rest on an um

belliferous plant. The student can now see the meaning of the delicate green mottling on the exterior

Fig. 110.

The Orange-Tip Butterfly at resu.

of its wings, and how, when the wings are closed at rest, they must protect the insect from its numerous

foes. Looking at the illustration, even, it is a bit of a puzzle to tell which is the butterfly and which the umbel of the flower. Some of our common moths exhibit this peculiarity quite as strongly, and among them none more decidedly than the buff-tip (Pygæra bucephala). Well do we remember, when a boy, Fig. 111.

The Buff Tip Moth at rest.

mistaking this moth at rest for a bit of dried twig, which the yellow end that has given to it its name causes it greatly to resemble. This moth you may find on most dry banks, or on the trunks of trees, especially the lime and elm, coupled in pairs. The Lappet moth (Lasiocampa quercifolia) is another "mimetic "

species, its specific name implying its resemblance to the leaf of a tree, long before the new doctrine of "mimicry" had arisen. Its mode of spreading out its wings still further carries out the resemblance to a dried leaf. The caterpillar of this insect feeds on the blackthorn and willow, and spins a long, blackish, and coarse cocoon among the lower twigs,

the moth itself generally appearing in June. It has been imagined that our local fauna produced few insects of this kind. The well-known "stick" and "leaf" insects of tropical countries have been long known, and furnished matter for curiosity, not scientific investigation. Now, however, a truly scientific basis has been found for this resemblance, and the insect fauna of every country is yielding

examples showing the operation of the general law. Even the caterpillars take advantage of it, and by their minute resemblance to twigs and thorns are enabled to elude their enemies.

Few entomologists have popularised the attractive study of entomology more than Mr. Edward Newman, whose works on British butterflies and British moths we would recommend our young readers to procure. His distinctions between butterflies and moths we give, as a model of simple and forcible description: "A butterfly always flies in the daytime. In the second place, it always rests by night, and almost always in rainy or cloudy weather. In the third place, when it is resting, it raises its wings, pressing them together back to back; but a moth turns its wings downwards, folding them round its body. Again, the hind wings of a butterfly are stiff, and you cannot fold them up; but the hind wings of a moth are almost invariably neatly folded up lengthwise, and quite hidden beneath the fore wings. Then, again, both butterflies and moths have two feelers attached to the head, just in front of the eyes; we call these antennæ. These in different insects are of different shapes; but in butterflies they generally have a little knob at the end. The owner cannot stow them away or hide them; whether the butterfly is asleep or awake, its antennæ are always stretched out in front, or held quite upright. Now a moth, when going to sleep, turns its antennæ under its wing, or conceals them