60 



HABITS AND INSTINCTS OP ANIMALS. CHAP. II 



of time, will become developed. It is well known that 

 crabs and spiders voluntarily cast away their feet under 

 the impulse of fear, or they are easily torn from them 

 by those who attempt their capture ; and yet this loss, 

 which to us would be certain death, seems to them a 

 matter of no considerable moment : they are as active, 

 the instant after they undergo the loss, as they were 

 before ; and nature, in a short space of time, supplies 

 the deficiency with a new limb. Every schoolboy 

 knows, from his own experience, that in attempting to 

 catch a crane fly, or " old father long legs," in other 

 words, a Tipula (fig. 13.), one half of its legs may, pro- 

 bably, remain in his 

 hand, while the insect 

 will fly away with the 

 rest. What vertebrated 

 animal could do this ? 

 A leg torn from a bird, 

 a lizard, or a quad- 

 ruped, would certainly 

 be followed by its 

 death ; for this is fre- 

 quently the result even 

 of a serious fracture or other injury to those Ijmbs. 



(77-) The vitality of insects is shown by number- 

 less other circumstances. Beetles that accidentally fall 

 into water, will remain alive in that element, long 

 after they have exhausted all their strength in efforts to 

 escape : they are apparently dead ; but, upon being taken 

 out and placed in the sun, they revive to their wonted 

 activity: the same resuscitation is observed in flies 

 drowned in wine. We frequently find beetles still 

 living, after one half of their body has been accidentally 

 crushed by the heedless foot of the passenger, or actually 

 picked out by some bird which had not finished its 

 meal. It is related by some entomological writer, (we 

 forget where the passage occurs), that the large dragon 

 flies, probably of the genus JEshna, are so voracious, 

 and so little susceptible of pain, that, upon his turning 



