MUSCULAR STRENGTH OF INSECTS. 181 



which he saw carrying- a wand a foot and a half long, 

 and half an inch thick, and even flying with it to the 

 distance of several yards *. 



It has been remarked, with reference to these facts 

 of comparative size and strength, that a cock-chafer 

 is six times stronger than a horse ; and Linnaeus 

 observes, that if an elephant were as strong in 

 proportion as a stag-beetle, it would be able to 

 tear up rocks and level mountains. The muscular 

 power of fish, however, seems to bear a near compa- 

 rison with that of insects. *' I have seen," says Sir 

 Gilbert Blane, "the sword of a sword-fish sticking 

 in a plank, which it had penetrated from side to side; 

 and when it is considered that the animal was then 

 moving through a medium even a thousand times 

 more dense than that through which a bird cleaves 

 its course at different heights of the atmosphere, and 

 that this was performed in the same direction with 

 the ship, what a conception do we form of this dis- 

 play of muscular strength f." It should, however, 

 be observed, that the muscular power of the sword- 

 fish is principally shown in the rate of swimming, by 

 which the animal overtakes the ships, and thus ac- 

 quires the momentum which determines the force 

 of the blow. We may understand the proximate 

 cause of the strength of insects, when we look 

 at the prodigious number of their muscles — the 

 lieshy belts or ribbons by whose means all animal 

 motions are performed. The number of these in- 

 struments of motion in the human body is reckoned 

 about .529 ; but in the caterpillar of the goat-moth, 

 Lyonnet counted more than seven times as many : 

 in the head, 228; in the body, 1647; and around 

 the intestines, 2186 ; which, after deducting 20, 



* Bradley, Phil. Account, p. 184. 

 t Sir Gilbert Blane, Select Diss. p. 281. 



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