The larva of one such deceptive insect, observed in Nicaragua by
sharp-eyed Mr. Belt, appeared at first sight like a mere fragment of the
moss on which it rested, its body being all prolonged into little
thread-like green filaments, precisely imitating the foliage around it.
Once more, there are common flies which secure protection for themselves
by growing into the counterfeit presentment of wasps or hornets, and so
obtaining immunity from the attacks of birds or animals. Many of these
curiously mimetic insects are banded with yellow and black in the very
image of their stinging originals, and have their tails sharpened, _in
terrorem_, into a pretended sting, to give point and verisimilitude to
the deceptive resemblance. More curious still, certain South American
butterflies of a perfectly inoffensive and edible family mimic in every
spot and line of colour sundry other butterflies of an utterly unrelated
and fundamentally dissimilar type, but of so disagreeable a taste as
never to be eaten by birds or lizards. The origin of these curious
resemblances I shall endeavour to explain (after Messrs. Bates and
Wallace) a little farther on: for the present it is enough to observe
that the extraordinary resemblances thus produced have often deceived
the very elect, and have caused experienced naturalists for a time to
stick some deceptive specimen of a fly among the wasps and hornets, or
some masquerading cricket into the midst of a cabinet full of saw-flies
or ichneumons.
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