The Glow-Worm 



gradually converted into broth, it has been 

 drained on the very spot at which the first 

 attack was delivered. These small details 

 tell us how promptly the anaesthetic bite takes 

 effect; they teach us how dexterously the 

 Glow-worm treats his Snail without causing 

 him to fall from a very slippery vertical sup- 

 port and without even shaking him on his 

 slight line of adhesion. 



Under these conditions of equilibrium, the 

 operator's short, clumsy legs are obviously 

 not enough; a special accessory apparatus is 

 needed to defy the danger of slipping and to 

 seize the unseizable. And this apparatus 

 the Lampyris possesses. At the hinder end 

 of the animal we see a white spot which the 

 lens separates into some dozen short, fleshy 

 appendages, sometimes gathered into a 

 cluster, sometimes spread into a rosette. 

 There is your organ of adhesion and locomo- 

 tion. If he would fix himself somewhere, 

 even on a very smooth surface, such as a 

 grass-stalk, the Glow-worm opens his rosette 

 and spreads it wide on the support, to which 

 it adheres by its own stickiness. The same 

 organ, rising and falling, opening and clo- 

 sing, does much to assist the act of progress- 

 ion. In short, the Glow-worm is a new sort 

 of self-propelled cripple, who decks his hind- 

 15 



