Nature holds the mirror to herself with inimitable skill. While the male
takes long flights, those of the female are short and uncertain and
seldom voluntary. Immediately she alights the anterior legs are
extended, the head is depressed between the thighs, and the legs which
are at liberty become as rigid as twigs. Among the branches of a shrub
her action is cautious and stealthy; but the stick insect is seldom to
be caught napping. It is very wide awake when it plays the dual part of
a sleepy snake and four crooked twigs. In youth, the colouring of the
female is ashy green, almost exactly the tint of the most common of
arboreal snakes, and at the time of life when it is less able to defend
itself it seems to spend all its days in the snake-like posture.
In some respects this insect resembles the MANTIS RELIGIOSA; but it does
not seem to possess the voracious appetite of that insect, which assumes
the supplicatory attitude that it may the more readily seize its prey.
Indeed, although two specimens were under observation for three months,
at morning, noon and eve, I only once saw one eating, and then it was
partaking sparingly of orange leaves.
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