26 MR. T. WEST ON APPENDAGES 
the branch of natural history to which I am most addicted, and, 
through a channel whereby I can address myself especially to my 
brother ornithologists *, to enter into details which I should not 
be warranted in inflicting upon this Society, from some of whose 
members, however, I trust to receive that support in investigating 
the generalities of the case which can alone secure to the project 
even the smallest degree of success. 
On certain Appendages to the Feet of Insects subservient to 
Holding or Climbing. By Turren Weisz, F.LS. 
[Abstract of papers read March 21 and June 6, 1861.] 
Tus structures in the foot of the Fly having long occupied the 
author’s attention, he was induced, by the fact of their minuteness 
and the difficulties attending satisfactory examination and reason- 
ing thereon, to search amongst insects generally for examples of 
analogous structures on a larger scale. With this view many 
examinations were made of such insects as could be procured ; and 
whenever practicable, they were viewed in action in the live-box. 
The importance of this was urged as the only way to obtain 
correct ideas regarding structures which must be more or less soft 
in order to fulfil their intended purposes, and which, therefore, are 
generally found shrivelled and distorted in dried specimens 
The labours of other observers in the same field were first 
mentioned, from which it appears that the way in which some 
insects are enabled to suspend themselves or to walk freely against 
gravity had been ascribed to causes which might conveniently be 
classified as follows :— 
A. By the entire cushions (of flies) acting as suckers. 
B. By the hairs with which the under surface of these cushions 
is furnished acting 
a. as minute hooks ; 
b. as suckers ; 
e. by adhesion through the emission of a viscid secretion from 
supposed glands in their expanded terminations ; 
d. as suckers, adhesion being assisted by the emission of a 
small quantity of fluid from such supposed glands. 
The author then gave the results of his own examinations, 
stating that similar structures to those on the feet of flies were 
present in many beetles, the largest being on the dilated anterior 
tarsi of the males amongst the Geodephagi or ground-beetles. 
* See ‘The Ibis’ for 1861, pp. 190-196. 
