INSECT SWIMMERS. 187 



a mile iu a minute the third of the distance which a race- 

 horse can achieve in the same period. 



When, from the air, we glance downwards to the waters, 

 we find the finny tribes in like manner equalled and, size con- 

 sidered, exceeded in their motive powers by a variety of insect 

 swimmers. Those which, in their perfect state, are wont to 

 inhabit or frequently resort to ponds and ditches such, for 

 instance, as aquatic beetles are usually provided with a pair 

 of hinder legs, long, strong, rather flattened, and densely 

 fringed with hair, assisted by which they cut the fluid element 

 in all directions, darting about, rising to the surface, or diving 

 to the bottom with the utmost rapidity. 



The above are among the principal of those insect move- 

 ments which resemble the common motions, on land, in air, 

 and in water, of other animals ; but the latter exhibit some of 

 a more peculiar character, wherewith insects also are endowed, 

 besides others which would seem common to no other crea- 

 tures but themselves. 



The serpent, deriving a false consequence from its very sen- 

 tence of degradation, is said to have partly owed its deification 

 to the power, once looked on as miraculous, of crawling with- 

 out legs. This attribute of once mysterious motion is shared 

 by many insects, which in their state of larva are legless, but 

 can glide onwards, and sometimes with rapidity, not pushed 

 along like the serpent by the points of its ribs, but by alter- 

 nate contraction and extension of the rings of the body. 



