INTERNAL ANATOMY OF INSECTS. 195 



abdomen, the skin of which is soft and unfit to act as a 

 lever to them, are attached to a cartilage, and thus their 

 action is better sustained a . 



Having thus laid before you all of importance that I 

 can collect with regard to the apparatus of muscles dis- 

 coverable in insects, I shall next say something upon a 

 few other points connected with that subject. When I 

 enlarged upon their motions, I related a few instances of 

 the extraordinary power of that apparatus b in leaping 

 ones; but this power is not confined to that circum- 

 stance. The fea 9 not more remarkable for its com- 

 pressed form, enabling it to glide between the hairs of 

 animals, and its elastic coat of mail, by which it can re- 

 sist the ordinary pressure of the fingers, than for its mus- 

 cular strength, has attracted notice on this account from 

 ancient times. Mouffet relates that an ingenious En- 

 glish mechanic, named Mark, made a golden chain of 

 the length of a finger, with a lock and key, which was 

 dragged by a flea ; he had heard of another that was 

 harnessed to a golden chariot, which it drew with the 

 greatest ease c . Another English workman made an 

 ivory coach with six horses, a coachman on the seat with 

 a dog between his legs, a postillion, four persons in the 

 coach, and four lacqueys behind which also was drag- 

 ged by a single flea. At such a spectacle one would 

 hardly know which most to admire, the strength and agi- 

 lity of the insect, or the patience of the workman. La- 

 treille mentions a flea of a moderate size dragging a sil- 

 ver cannon on wheels, that was twenty-four times its own 

 weight, which being charged with powder, was fired 



a Arachnid. 45. t. Hi./. 31 . m, n, q, r, t. b VOL. II. p. 309. 

 e Mouffet Theatr. 275. 



o 2 



