Extracts from the Minutt-Book of the Linnean Society. 769 



though in the case of the spielers considerable diffi- 

 culties presented themselves, in consequence of the 

 exceedingly minute quantity of adhesive matter emitted 

 by the brushes of those animals. On submitting this 

 secretion to the direct rays of the sun, in the month of 

 July, and to brisk currents of air, whose drying power 

 was great, I ascertained that it did not suffer any per- 

 ceptible diminution by evaporation under those cir- 

 cumstances. 



*' Now it is reasonable to infer, from the foregoing 

 researches, that the hair-like appendages constituting 

 the brushes of spiders, and occurring in such profu- 

 sion on the inferior surface of the pulvilli of insects, 

 are tubular. The delicate membrane also, on the under 

 side of the prolegs, and the tarsi of the perfect legs of 

 various larvae capable of traversing polished perpen- 

 dicular bodies, without the aid of lines produced b}- a 

 spinning apparatus, must be provided with numerous 

 pores, or minute papillae, from which an adhesive se- 

 cretion is emitted. Some larvae which are not sup- 

 plied with prolegs, those of the Coccinellce for example, 

 have the inferior part of the tarsi of their perfect legs 

 thickly covered with hair-like appendages resembling 

 in figure, and in the function they perform, those on 

 the pulvilli of insects in the imago state ; while others, 

 altogether destitute of legs, emit a viscid mucus from 

 both their extremities, and by advancing and attach- 

 ing each alternately, are thus enabled to ascend smooth 

 bodies with facility. 



*' According to my observations, the instrument is 

 composed of several branched membranous papillae 

 included in a common envelope. They are extremely 



5 F 2 flexible 



