We have already seen that many of the living creatures of Madagascar gain great protection from enemies from the assimilation of their colour to that of their surroundings. This is the case also with many species of grasshopper and of mantis. You see an insect with bright scarlet wings flit by you and settle on a bush; wanting to observe it more closely, you try to find it, but it has disappeared, and not a vestige of bright colour is to be seen. Still, if you are patient and search carefully, you may presently see a mantis moving its head about in an uncanny fashion, and its fore legs held up in a mock devotional attitude, from which its specific name of _Religiosa_ has been given it. But the scarlet wings are folded under its green wing-cases so as to be perfectly unseen, and these coverings are just like a leaf, the rest of its body being exactly the colour of its resting-place. In some of the grasshoppers, this mimicry of vegetable forms is still more wonderful. Here is one which resembles _green_ grass, and its body, legs, wing-sheaths and antennæ are all as like grass as they can possibly be. But here again is another kind, whose body is equally imitative of _dry_ grass, and so all parts of it are just like the stalks or the blades of yellowish-brown grass, dried up during the cold season. Even the eyes are imitative, and exactly resemble a small brown seed, such as many grasses bear. [Sidenote: BEETLES] There are many species of beetles to be seen, although none of them are very handsome or conspicuous. The most common kind is a broad flat insect, about an inch long and dull dark brown in colour, which crosses one’s path at every step. Another is seen chiefly on the bushes, a smaller insect, but bright shining jet-black. Another, which appears as if it mimicked a wasp in its habit of flight, is shot with brown and green, with very long legs, and is constantly taking short flights or running rapidly. Another one, but much more rare, has golden-green and metallic tints on its wing-cases. But the insect which has puzzled us most is one that I have seen on a large bush of _Ròimémy_, a plant with acacia-like leaves, with prickles along the leaf-stalks. This beetle is about five-eighths of an inch long, and almost hemispherical in shape. It is warm reddish-brown in colour, with a line of black and then of yellow next the head, and is perfectly flat below. These insects cluster closely, as thick as they can lie, in groups of from a dozen to more than a hundred together, all round the thicker stems, so that they look at a little distance like strings of large brown beads; and in some of the topmost branches they form a continuous mass for two or three feet. Amongst these shining brown insects are a few others of quite a different colour and shape, perfectly flat, like a minute tortoise, and of a uniform grey, exactly resembling the lichen on the bark of the tree, and the edges of the carapace scalloped. These grey insects are in