THE CRANE-FLY'S POISERS. 103 



behind each wing ; for what purpose it may puzzle them to 

 tell. These instruments, which are by no means peculiar to 

 the Tipula, but possessed also by the common house and other 

 two-winged flies, are called poisers, and, as their name imports, 

 are considered to balance the body and render the flight more 

 steady, serving (as says Derham"*) " to the insect, as the long 

 pole laden at the ends with lead does to the rope-dancer." 

 The same naturalist tells us, that " if one of these be cut off 

 the insect flies one side over the other and falleth;" and 

 another, who supposes them air-holders, found that a Tipula 

 deprived of both could not fly at all. 



Of these same appendages it has also been suggested, that, 

 by their employment as veritable drumsticks beating on the 

 wings, they may assist in the production of that buzzing sound, 

 to account for which has puzzled not a few philosophers. But 

 however this may be with the two-winged band in general, the 

 little knobbed articles, to which we are now directing special 

 notice, are not thus employed, seeing that it cannot be said of 

 the crane-fly _, as of some other fliers, and of that celebrated 

 lady " with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes," that 

 " the ' longlegs* makes music wherever he goes." 



Those who behold the crane-fly only in its proper person 

 in the elevated maturity of its stilted supporters must not 

 suppose it has been always thus exalted above its fellows, nor 

 must they imagine it to have grown by degrees to its present 



* In his ' Physico-Theology.' 



