TAIL, EYES, AND LEGS 285 



strong and sharp, capable alike of breaking the 

 strongest snail shell, of neatly spitting and carrying 

 off an egg, or of giving a severe nip to any hand 

 which meddles with it. It has extraordinary 

 muscular strength of leg, which it delights to use, 

 not so much by a sedate and stately walk, as do its 

 nearest relations, the raven, the crow, the rook, and 

 the jackdaw, as by leaps and bounds of surprising 

 length. I well remember a magpie, with its wing 

 just tipped by shot, but otherwise unhurt, which I 

 came on unexpectedly in a copse, called Bunker's 

 Hill at Stafford, some forty years ago. It bounded 

 along a ride, for thirty or forty yards, as fast as, or 

 faster than, I could run. But the exertion of 

 continued leaping, even in animals especially con- 

 structed for it, from a flea or a grasshopper to a frog, 

 a jerboa, or a kangaroo, is so great that it must, 

 comparatively soon, come to an end. Each succes- 

 sive leap becomes shorter than the one before it, till 

 the leap becomes a walk, and the walk, a crawl, and 

 that soon ends in complete exhaustion. Try the 

 experiment for yourself if you are unlucky enough 

 to find one with a flea upon a sheet, or with a 

 grasshopper, or a frog upon a lawn. Even a toad, 

 when disturbed, will at first give one or two 

 apologies for a hop ; but they completely exhaust his 



