I seldom trouble the public with a Greek or
Latin name, but on this occasion I trust I may be pardoned for not
indulging in all the ingenuous bluntness of the vernacular.
Sometimes this effective mimicry of stinging insects seems to be even
consciously performed by the tiny actors. Many creatures, which do not
themselves possess stings, nevertheless endeavour to frighten their
enemies by assuming the characteristic hostile attitudes of wasps or
hornets. Everybody in England must be well acquainted with those common
British earwig-looking insects, popularly known as the devil's
coach-horses, which, when irritated or interfered with, cock up their
tails behind them in the most aggressive fashion, exactly reproducing
the threatening action of an angry scorpion. Now, as a matter of fact,
the devil's coach-horse is quite harmless, but I have often seen, not
only little boys and girls, but also chickens, small birds, and
shrew-mice, evidently alarmed at his minatory attitude. So, too, the
bumble-bee flies, which are inoffensive insects got up in sedulous
imitation of various species of wild bee, flit about and buzz angrily in
the sunlight, quite after the fashion of the insects they mimic; and
when disturbed they pretend to get excited, and seem as if they wished
to fly in their assailant's face and roundly sting him. This curious
instinct may be put side by side with the parallel instinct of shamming
dead, possessed by many beetles and other small defenceless species.
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