379 



Chapter XVI. 



Peculiar Locomotions. 



Those who have attended to the paces of the larger 

 animals are well aware of their almost infinite 

 variety ; but the differences between the heavy tread 

 of the elephant or the waddling roll of an overgrown 

 pig, the elegant pace of a blood-horse or the sprightly 

 trip of an antelope, will bear no comparison with the 

 infinite diversities observable among the movements 

 of insects. We look upon the long legs of the giraffe 

 and the crane as inelegant and disproportionate, how 

 well suited soever they may be to their mode of life : 

 but what should we think of a species of giraffe, with 

 legs long enough to enable it to overtop the tallest 

 trees, so as to browse on their tops, as oxen do on the 

 grass of a meadow, while it walked at ease through 

 woods and forests ; or of a wren or sparrow with legs 

 as long as the hop-poles among which it prowled to 

 prey upon aphides and lady-birds ? But animals of 

 such descriptions, wildly imaginary as they must be 

 confessed to be, may be readily matched in the insect 

 world. The pendulum crane-fly {Tipula motitatrix), 

 formerly mentioned, as well as the shepherd-spider 

 (^Phalangium opi/io), described in the same place, are 

 remarkable examples of this : and we have still more 

 striking instances in the large clouded-winged crane-fly 

 ( Tipula gigantea, Meigen), popularly termed father- 

 longlegs, or jenny -spinner ; their stilted legs enabling 

 those insects to overtop the grass as they walk in the 

 meadows, in the same way as our imaginary giraffe 



