WALKING OF INSECTS. 179 



powers of a kind possessed by no other living creatures with 

 which we are acquainted. 



But the best way, perhaps, to obtain a tolerable notion of 

 the extent and perfection of insect activities, will be to divide 

 them into two classes, the one consisting of movements 

 common to other animals, the other of those nearly or quite 

 peculiar to themselves. 



First, for that most ordinary mode of progression, walking. 

 This, among insects, (most of which are possessed, in their 

 perfect state, of six legs) varies in rate or pace from the 

 slowest creep to the swiftest run. The Coleoptera, or Beetle- 

 tribe, alone furnish instances of each degree of progression 

 exemplified in its extremes by the laborious creep of the oil- 

 beetle,"^ overwhelmed, seemingly, by oozing fatness, and the 

 light, rapid, agile course of the predatory Cardbusp or that of 

 the rapacious Cicindela, resembling 



" The forest's leaping panther, 

 Fierce, beautiful, and fleet." 



Some butterflies amongst others, the little "Tortoise-shell" 

 may be designated insect quadrupeds, inasmuch as of their 

 six legs the two foremost being very short and imperfect, four 

 only serve the purpose of walking ; an accomplishment, by the 

 way, in which butterflies in general, like the ladies of England, 

 do not particularly excel. If rapidity of pace depended on the 

 number of instruments employed in walking, both butterfly 



* See Vignette. 



