feel and smell
extra well because of them?

I wish you could tell us about them.

Now where is it?

Oh, yes, it is standing on that brown twig. It is so nearly the color of
the twig and so much the shape of a little stick itself, that it is not
easy to find it.

There, it is walking off again.

[Illustration]

It has a good name, for I am sure that if a stick tried to walk, it
could not do it more awkwardly.

See now, what it is doing, hanging by one foot from that twig.

How still it is.

Who would imagine, seeing it thus for the first time, that it was a
living creature?

The walking sticks feed on leaves, and I suppose their queer shape and
their color protect them from being eaten by birds.

A bird would have to be very close to a walking stick to tell it from a
twig.

The female drops the eggs on the ground, and leaves them to hatch out
and make their way in the world as best they can.

[Illustration]

The young walking sticks look just like their parents, only of course
they are very small, and they are green in color, like the leaves they
eat.

Yes, little Nell, I should like to find some too; they must be cunning
little things.

They eat and grow and moult, and eat and grow and moult, until they are
grown up.

There are a good many species of walking sticks in the world,
particularly in hot countries; and to their family belong the longest of
known insects, some being nearly a foot long. Just imagine a walking
stick a foot long!

And some of them are quite prettily colored, though certain species are
not pleasant to handle, as they give forth a bad-smelling milky fluid
when disturbed.

They are gentle little folk, all of them, and move slowly about over the
leaves and twigs, not wishing to harm any living thing.

Some members of the walking stick family have wings, and these are even
more curious than those that have none.

Their wings and legs are flattened to look like leaves, so that it is
very difficult to find them among the foliage.

[Illustration]

Yes, May, they are also the color of the leaves they live among.

Here is a picture of one that will give some idea of these strange
little people.

We have none of these leaf-like insects in our country, but we do have a
near relative to the walking sticks, though it does not feed on leaves,
I assure you.

How many of you are acquainted with his lordship, the praying mantis?

[Illustration]

Charlie says he has seen t