The insects which present this kind of imitation most perfectly are the Phasmidae, or stick and leaf insects. The well-known leaf-insects of Ceylon and of Java, species of Phyllium, are so wonderfully coloured and veined, with leafy expansions on the legs and thorax, that not one person in ten can see them when resting on the food-plant close beneath their eyes. Others resemble pieces of stick with all the minutiae of knots and branches, formed by the insects' legs, which are stuck out rigidly and unsymmetrically. I have often been unable to distinguish between one of these insects and a real piece of stick, till I satisfied myself by touching it and found it to be alive. One species, which was brought me in Borneo, was covered with delicate semitransparent green foliations, exactly resembling the hepaticae which cover pieces of rotten stick in the damp forests. Others resemble dead leaves in all their varieties of colour and form; and to show how perfect is the protection obtained and how important it is to the possessors of it, the following incident, observed by Mr. Belt in Nicaragua, is most instructive. Describing the armies of foraging ants in the forest which devour every insect they can catch, he says: "I was much surprised with the behaviour of a green leaf-like locust. This insect stood immovably among a host of ants, many of which ran over its legs without ever discovering there was food within their reach. So fixed was its instinctive knowledge that its safety depended on its immovability, that it allowed me to pick it up and replace it among the ants without making a single effort to escape. This species closely resembles a green leaf."[70]