380 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



would overtop the trees in a forest. We have been 

 more struck with instances of this in some of the 

 bug tribe, because here it was least to have been 

 expected. In our earlier entomological researches, 

 we frequently noticed, upon a white-washed wall, a 

 very strange looking insect, if insect it might be 

 called, moving about in the most awkward manner 

 imaginable. It looked, however, more like a slip of 

 gray tree bark, not half the breadth of a wheat-straw, 

 that had been accidentally caught on some straggling 

 films of spider's web, which allowed it to oscillate 

 irregularly in the air, than a real living creature, for 

 the long gossamer legs did not, to the unassisted eye, 

 appear to move at all, and the slender awkward 

 body progressed by interrupted jerks (if such 

 slow motions may be so termed), resembling the 

 movement of the minute-hand of a clock. The 

 glass, however, showed that the body was covered by 

 the folds of four membranous wings, prettily mottled, 

 which lay in a hollow groove on the back, while the 

 long slender legs were elegantly ringed with white 

 It was, in short, one of the numerous family of plant- 

 bugs (Neides elegans ? CURTIS) which had strayed 

 from the adjacent garden to the wall. Another 

 occurred in the same place somewhat similar, but 

 considerably smaller, and stalked along with equally 

 awkward jerks, upon only its four hind-legs, while it 

 kept its two fore-legs, which were greatly shorter, 

 folded up under its belly, in readiness, probably, to 

 seize on the first luckless mite or aphis that came in 

 its way.* The latter appears to be the wandering 

 plant-bug (Ploiaria vagabunda, SCOPOLI). 



Many insects are capable of performing a feat 

 which no other animal could accomplish without the 

 aid of the water-shoes lately invented we allude to 

 walking on the water, as distinct from swimming, 



* J. R. 



