Punch in the street
show knocks down the policeman who comes to arrest him, and the grimy
black personage of sulphurous antecedents who pops up with a fizz
through the floor of his apartment.
Queerer still than the caterpillars which pretend to be leaves or
flowers for the sake of protection are those truly diabolical and
perfidious Brazilian spiders which, as Mr. Bates observed, are
brilliantly coloured with crimson and purple, but 'double themselves up
at the base of leaf-stalks, so as to resemble flower buds, and thus
deceive the insects upon which they prey.' There is something hideously
wicked and cruel in this lowest depth of imitative infamy. A flower-bud
is something so innocent and childlike; and to disguise oneself as such
for purposes of murder and rapine argues the final abyss of arachnoid
perfidy. It reminds one of that charming and amiable young lady in Mr.
Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Dynamiter,' who amused herself in moments of
temporary gaiety by blowing up inhabited houses, inmates and all, out of
pure lightness of heart and girlish frivolity. An Indian mantis or
praying insect, a little less wicked, though no less cruel than the
spiders, deceives the flies who come to his arms under the false
pretence of being a quiet leaf, upon which they may light in safety for
rest and refreshment. Yet another abandoned member of the same family,
relying boldly upon the resources of tropical nature, gets itself up as
a complete orchid, the head and fangs being moulded in the exact image
of the beautiful blossom, and the arms folding treacherously around the
unhappy insect which ventures to seek for honey in its deceptive jaws.
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