380 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



would overtop the trees in a forest. We have been 

 more struck with instances of this in some of the 

 bug tribe, because here it was least to have been 

 expected. In our earlier entomological researches, 

 we frequently noticed upon a white-washed wall, a 

 very strange looking insect, if insect it might be 

 called, moving about in the most awkward manner 

 imaginable. It looked, however, more like a slip of 

 gray tree bark, not half the breadth of a wheat-straw, 

 that had been accidently caught on some straggling 

 films of spiders'^ web, which allowed it to oscillate 

 irregularly in the air, than a real living creature, — for 

 the long gossamer legs did not, to the unassisted eye, 

 appear to move at all, and the slender awkward 

 body progressed by interrupted jerks (if such slow 

 motions may be so termed), resembling the m.ovement 

 of the minute-hand of a clock. The glass, however, 

 showed that the body was covered by the folds of four 

 membranous wings, prettily mottled, which lay in a 

 hollow groove on the back, while the long slender legs 

 were elegantly ringed with white. It was, in short, 

 one of the numerous family of plant-bugs {Neides 

 elegans ? Curtis), which had strayed from the ad- 

 jacent garden to the wall. Another occurred in the 

 same place somewhat similar, but considerablv smaller, 

 and stalked along with equally awkward jerks, upon 

 only its four hind-legs, while it kept its two fore-legs, 

 which were greatly shorter, folded up under its belly, 

 in readiness, probably, to seize on the first luckless 

 mite or aphis that came in its way.* The latter ap- 

 pears to be the wandering plant-bug (Ploiaria vaga- 

 hunda^ Scopoli). 



Many insects are capable of performing a feat 



which no other animal could accomplish w'ithout the 



aid of the water-shoes lately invented — we allude to 



walking on the water, as distinct from swimming, 



* J. U. 



