104 TENANTS OF AN OLD FARM. 



hold gathered in the old sitting-room for another ento- 

 mological ' seance. ' Where Sarah had picked up that 

 word, and how she had managed to transform it. we 

 never learned, but we were all so impressed with the 

 superiority of her version, that the cook's title was at 

 once naturalized, and ' the Tenant's Sa3'-an'says ' be- 

 came one of the current phrases of our little realm when 

 we were in a merry mood, 



" I have here a specimen," I began, "plucked from 

 a straggling sprig of wood-wax or dyer's weed {Genista 

 tinctoria) which represents a very familiar race of cater- 

 pillars, the Geometers, or span-worms. They are so 

 called from the mode of walking peculiar to the larvae. 

 Most of these have only ten legs, six of which are 

 jointed and tapering, under the fore part of the body, 

 and four fleshy prop legs at the hinder extremity. 

 There are no legs 'on the middle of the body, and con- 

 sequently the caterpillars are imable to crawl in the 

 usual manner. When one wishes to advance it grasps 

 the object firmly with its fore feet, and then draws up 

 the hind feet close to them, not unlike the attitude 

 of a cat which meets a strange dog. The hinder 

 feet then take a firm hold and the body is projected 

 forward until the fore feet can repeat the process. 

 This mode of progression is popularly called ' loop- 

 ing,' and the caterpillars are called ' loopors.' 



" The Geometers live as larva* on trees and bushes, and 

 most of them undergo their transformations in the 

 ground, to reach which by traveling along the branches 

 and down the trunk by their peculiar gait would be a 



