v 





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FATHER LONGLEGS AND HIS FAMILY. 



" The so-called superfluities of nature 

 Are growths but fancied, sprung of Ignorance." 



NEXT to the butterfly and the ladybird, we may perhaps assign 

 a place, among the insect familiars of our childhood, to that 

 ungainly skipper best known to us, wheresoever we may meet 

 him " upstairs or downstairs or in my lady's chamber" as 

 " Old Father Longlegs," 



Our book-learning may have possibly made us acquainted 

 with Mm, since, under the more refined epithet of Tipula, or r 

 Crane-fly; but call the creature by what name we may 



