308 USES OF LONG LEGS. 



now, on the movements of Father Longlegs, we seem to see 

 clearly that long legs were given him because his proper busi- 

 ness, exercise, and pleasure require him to make his way not 

 over level ground, but over high, uneven grass. 1 



Our stilted walker is now upon the wing, and, as he rises 

 into air, we perceive another of the apparent uses of his 

 lengthy legs. We notice now, that in the act of flying his two 

 fore legs are horizontally pointed forwards, while the four 

 hinder are stretched out in an opposite direction; the one 

 forming the prow, the other the stern, of his trim-built vessel, 

 in its voyage through the ocean of air. 1 



We see in this, his manner of aerial progress, an additional 

 fitness of our Tipula's name of Crane-fly, and are forced to 

 confess that the crane-fly has reason to glory in the length of 

 his legs; but why he is so remarkably apt to lose them is a 

 thing which remains rather less apparent to our comprehension. 



If any of our friends will take the trouble to look narrowly 

 at the next Longlegs, rested conveniently for inspection on 

 wall or window, they will perceive (what perhaps they never 

 saw before) two curious little appendages, like drumsticks, 

 placed behind each wing ; for what purpose it may puzzle them 

 to tell. These instruments, which are by no means peculiar to 

 the Tipula, but possessed also by the common house and other 

 two-winged flies, are called poisers, and, as their name imports, 

 are considered to balance the body and render the flight more 

 steady, serving (as says Derham 2 ) " to the insect, as the long 

 pole laden at the ends with lead does to the rope-dancer." 

 The same naturalist tells us, that " if one of these be cut off 

 the insect flies one side over the other and falleth ;" and 

 another, who supposes them air-holders, found that a Tipula 

 deprived of both could not fly at all. 



Of these same appendages it has also been suggested, that, 

 by their employment as veritable drumsticks beating on the 



1 See Vignette. * In his " Physico-Theology." 



