DADDY-LONG-LEGS. 55 



proof of his consciousness that he is a painful failure, and 

 that the sooner he terminates his existence the better, and 

 he gladly yields up his life on the smallest pressure between 

 the human finger and thumb. He himself is unable to see, 

 and no one else has been able to discover, the raison d'etre 

 of his existence. He is certainly not ornamental, nor is he 

 useful. He has no means of defence, and seems to have 

 no joys in his life. He does not appear to have even 

 the pleasure of going to sleep. . Other insects are diurnal 

 or nocturnal in their habits, but the Tipula is active all 

 day, and about and on the look-out for candles all night. 

 The closest observer has never seen him close an eye. 

 Even in the grub state his existence cannot be a cheerful 

 one, unless he derives a positive pleasure from the act 

 of devouring everything he comes across. For as a grub, 

 he possesses no legs, and no visible eyes ; he is a round, 

 wrinkled, tough tube, and one of the most destructive of 

 the enemies of the farmer and the gardener. 



Why in one stage of his life this creature should be 

 altogether legless, while in the other he should possess an 

 absolute superfluity of leg, is a problem which has puzzled 

 the deepest thinkers, and it has been suggested that the 

 abnormal stupidity of the daddy-long-legs is caused by his 

 own ineffectual efforts to grapple with the problem. Nature, 

 indeed, has given to him an infinitesimally small amount of 

 brain. While in the fly and the ant the head bears almost 

 the same proportion to the body as it does in the human 

 species, in the Tipula oleracea it is not the hundredth part 

 of the bulk of the body ; indeed, it is questionable whether 

 in all nature a creature is to be found so badly provided 

 with head. Even the rustic mind, which is slow to recognise 



