CHAPTER XVI. 



Peculiar Locomotions. 



THOSE who have attended to the paces of the larger 

 animals, are well aware of their almost infinite 

 variety ; but the differences between the heavy tread of 

 the elephant or the waddling roll of an overgrown 

 pig, the elegant pace of a blood-horse or the 

 sprightly trip of an antelope, will bear no comparison 

 with the infinite diversities observable among the 

 movements of insects. We look upon the long legs 

 of the giraffe and the crane as inelegant and dispro- 

 portionate, how well suited soever they may be to 

 their mode of life : but what should we think of a 

 species of giraffe, with legs long enough to enable it 

 to overtop the tallest trees, so as to browse on their- 

 tops as oxen do on the grass of a meadow, while it 

 walked at ease through woods and forests ; or of a 

 wren or sparrow with legs as long as the hop-poles 

 among which it prowled to prey upon aphides and 

 lady-birds. But animals of such descriptions, wildly 

 imaginary as they must be confessed to be, may be 

 readily matched in the insect world. The pendulum 

 crane fly (Tipula motitatrix), formerly mentioned, 

 as well as the shepherd spider (Phalangium 

 opilio}, described in the same place, are remarkable 

 examples of this ; and we have still more striking 

 instances in the large clouded- winged crane fly 

 (Tipula gigantea, MEIGEN), popularly termed father 

 longlegs, or jenny-spinner, their stilted legs enabling 

 these insects to overtop the grass as they walk in the 

 meadows, in the same way as our imaginary giraffe 



