DEFIERS OF STEEL. 209 



three years, of sheep-lice existing twelve months in a shorn 

 fleece; while the grub of an aphis-eating fly, 1 left under a 

 glass, was found alive three months afterwards, the thread of 

 its existence having been actually eight times doubled by the 

 very circumstance seeming most adapted to cut it short. 



Lastly, it is not always that cutting steel, or festering brass, 

 are effectual in the severing of that slender thread on which, 

 nevertheless, the life of an insect hangs so strongly suspended. 



We are told of beetles found living weeks after impalement 

 on a transfixing pin. We daily see crane-flies (more commonly 

 known as father-longlegs) footing it featly over the grass, or 

 " upstairs and downstairs," with one or more of its half-dozen 

 shanks deficient, and flying merrily, with scarce even a leg left 

 to walk on. 



Indeed the famous fable of Agrippa would by no means 

 apply to many of the insect race; for with them, certainly, 

 there does not seem to exist the same degree of mutual depen- 

 dency observable in other animals between the body and the 

 members. The severed head of a wasp will bite while its 

 severed leg clutches a morsel of sugar, as if they were saying 

 to the detached stomach, " We have no need of a digester ;" 

 and the dismembered body, in return, will sting furiously, as 

 if to reply, " And I have no need of a directing head or 

 assisting limbs." 



The same is exemplified in the instance of a dragon-fly, 

 which, deprived of its long abdomen, was seen 2 to devour two 

 small flies. Connected with this obstinate vitality of insects 

 comes naturally the question of their sensitivity, which, from 

 this very vitality, we may certainly infer to be less acute than 

 with other animals. Happily for them, and certainly much 

 to our own comfort, when we think upon the subject, we 

 have far more reason to doubt than to believe the oft-repeated 

 dictum, that 



1 By Kirby. By Mr Haworth. 



