102 DISMEMBERMENT AND DEATH. 



cunning artificer suspended, head downwards, in the centre, or 

 else beside it, half hidden by a leaf, so as to watch, unseen, its 

 eagerly desired victims. And see ! a single crane-fly, a de- 

 serter from the stilted phalanx on the grass, rises, sweeping 

 towards the hedge, and (silly or short-sighted little animal !) 

 unconscious of the warning tokens heads, wings, legs, of 

 murdered or mutilated comrades which bedeck the net of the 

 spider touches the circles of the fatal maze. It trembles to 

 its centre, and from her leafy ambush out rushes the grim 

 destroyer. 



Hapless Father Longlegs ! not by the leg art thou this time 

 entangled, for then, with a leg minus, thou inightest have pro- 

 ceeded on thy flight ; but by the wing thou art fast holden, 

 and, struggle as thou mayest, before thy regardless fellow r s have 

 finished their sunset gambols, thou wilt be reduced to no- 

 thing but a headless, wingless, legless trunk, occupying, in 

 the grasp of thy sleek, fat-bodied murderess, the centre of her 

 terrible snare. 



So here is an end of Father Longlegs ; but he lives always 

 in others of his race, about whom there is still something to 

 be observed worth noting, albeit not quite so noticeable as 

 their giraft'ean supporters. 



If any of our friends will take the trouble to look narrowly 

 at the next Longlegs, rested conveniently for inspection on w all 

 or window, they will perceive (what perhaps they never saw 

 before) two curious little appendages, like drumsticks, placed 



