MOTIONS OF INSECTS. 313 



or rather arms, while tlie two posterior pair are very 

 long-. Its antennae also are long. When it walks, 

 whicli it does very slowly, with a solemn measured step, 

 its fore legs, which perhaps are useful only in climbing, 

 or to seize its prey, are applied to the body, and the 

 antennae being bent, their extremity, which is rather 

 thick, is made to rest upon the surface on which the 

 animal moves, and so supply the place of fore legs^.— 

 I have observed that mites often use the long hairs with 

 which the tail of some species is furnished, to assist them 

 in walking. 



Another mode of motion with which many insects are 

 endowed is jumping. This is generally the result of 

 the sudden unbending of the articulations of the poste- 

 rior legs and other organs, which before had received 

 more than their natural bend. This unbending im- 

 presses a violent rotatory motion' upon these parts, the 

 impulse of which being communicated to the centre 

 of gravity, causes the animal to spring into the air 

 with a determinate velocity, opposed to its weight 

 more or less directly^. Various are the organs by 

 which these creatures are enabled to effect this mo- 

 tion. The niajority do it by a peculiar conformation 

 of the hind legs ; others by a pectoral process ; and 

 others, again, by means of certain elastic appendages 

 to the abdomen. 



The land legs of many beetles are furnished with re- 

 markably large and thick posterior thighs. Of this de- 

 scription are several species of weevils {Curculionidce) ; 

 for instance, Rt/7ichcenus Alni, &e., F., and Ramphus 

 fldvicornis, Clairv. ; the wholte tribe of skippers (Ilal- 



" i)e Gccr, iii, 324— " Cuvicr, Anat, Comp. i. 496— 



