DADDY-LONG-LEGS. 



ONE compensation for the coming of winter is that at 

 that season we are free from the presence of the 

 daddy-long-legs, known to the scientific as Tipula oleracfa, 

 who comes among us in the autumn in vast hosts, and 

 makes himself as unpleasantly conspicuous as possible by 

 his earnest and persevering efforts to commit suicide in 

 our lamps and candles. This creature is remarkable as 

 being a standing protest against the Darwinian theory of 

 the survival of the fittest. Nothing could be more unfit 

 than this insect to battle for existence ; his flight is slow and 

 weary ; he is incapable of dodging his pettiest foes, and his 

 long, useless legs are everywhere in his way. Had there 

 been anything in the theory, the Tipula oleracea would 

 have set to work to shorten his legs, to strengthen his wings, 

 and to attain something of the easy elegance and lightness 

 of movement of his first cousin, the gnat. That it is no 

 fault of his own that he has not done so we may be sure, 

 for evidently the creature is painfully conscious of the 

 clumsiness of his appearance and gait, and is prepared at 

 the shortest of notice to divest himself altogether of the 

 legs which are such an encumbrance to him. The urgency 

 of his desire to commit suicide in the flames is another 



