156 INSECT BEHAVIOR 



tips of the other four have become cleft like a cow's, all as we shall 

 see for a purpose. 



The thread-legged bug is extremely sluggish, every move being 

 made very slowly and with great deliberation. Indeed they would 

 make little progress in a lifetime, were it not for their habit of 

 never resting. They are as active by night as by day and sleep is 

 unknown. 



In length the creature's body measures an inch and a half, 

 while in width it is comparable to a sliver cut from a match. Two 

 of the three pairs of legs are long and slender and the third pair, 

 nearest the head, resemble a pair of arms bent abruptly at the 

 elbows with hands bent backward towards the wrists. Upon these 

 powerful tongs are rows of stiff hairs interspersed with an occa- 

 sional sharp spike, which serve as meat hooks for the insect's vic- 

 tims. 



The head is very minute, supplied with red, highly compounded 

 eyes, which protrude in a ridiculous fashion, and a long bayonet 

 which is hollow and used for sucking the juices from the creature's 

 luckless victims. 



Strange to say, flies and small bees form the thread-leg's chief 

 article of diet. One wonders, in view of the insect's sluggish nature, 

 how such agile objects can be captured. The original method, em- 

 ployed by the thread-legs of the past and those few who still cling 

 to the ancestral home among the foliage, was doubtless to remain 

 motionless, like the assassin bugs, where flies and bees abound. 

 Drunk with the liquor of newly opened blossoms, they were easily 

 fallen upon and devoured. 



But what of food in the creature's new home, among the weathered 

 timbers of its man-made dwellings? It is there to be sure, flies, and 

 even tiny bees, searching for tunnels wherein to rear their progeny. 

 In quality and quantity the supply is all that can be desired, but how 



