the animal kingdom by the faintest suspicion of spontaneous movement. All the members of this family have this power of shamming death; but how such emaciated and juiceless skeletons should ever presume to be alive is the real mystery. These Phasmidæ look more like ghosts than living creatures, and so slim are they that, in trying to kill them for the collecting-box, the strongest squeeze between finger and thumb makes no more impression upon them than it would upon fine steel wire, and one has to half-guillotine them against some hard substance before any little life they have is sacrificed to science. I examined after this many thousands of Phasmidæ, Mantidæ, and other mimetic forms, and there is certainly in nature no more curious or interesting study. These grass-stalk insects live exclusively among the long grass which occurs in patches all over the forests, and often reaches a height of eight or ten feet. During three-fourths of the year it is dried by the sun into a straw-yellow color, and all the insects are painted to match. Although yellow is the ground tone of these grasses, they are variegated, and especially towards the latter half of the year, in two ways. They are either tinged here and there with red and brown, like the autumn colors at home, or they are streaked and spotted with black mould or other markings, painted by the finger of decay. All these appearances are closely imitated by insects. To complete the deception, some have the antennæ developed to represent blades of grass, which are often from one to two inches in length, and stick out from the end of the body, one on either side, like blades of grass at the end of a stalk. The favorite attitude of these insects is to clasp a grass-stalk, as if they were climbing a pole; then the body is compressed against the stem and held in position by the two fore-limbs, which are extended in front so as to form one long line with the body, and so mixed up with the stalk as to be practically part of it. The four other legs stand out anyhow in rigid spikes, like forks from the grass, while the antennæ are erected at the top, like blades coming off from a node, which the button-like head so well resembles. When one of these insects springs to a new stalk of grass it will at once all but vanish before your eyes. It remains there perfectly rigid, a component part of the grass itself, its long legs crooked and branched exactly like dried hay, the same in color, the same in fineness, and quite defying detection. These blades, alike with limbs and body, are variously colored according to season and habitat. When the grasses are tinged with autumn tints they are the same; and the colors run through many shades, from the pure bright red, such as tips the fins of a perch, to the deeper claret colors or the tawny gold of port. But an even more singular fact remains to be noted. After the rainy season, when the new grasses spring up with