DEFIERS OF STEEL. 167 



motion, I concluded it was dead, and laid it in the sun to dry. 

 It no sooner, however, felt the warmth than it began to move, 

 and afterwards flew away. From this time I began to attend to 

 insects." 



Lastly, it is not always that cutting steel, or festering brass, 

 are effectual in the severing of that slender thread on which, 

 nevertheless, the life of an insect hangs so strongly suspended. 



"We are told of beetles found living weeks after impalement 

 on a transfixing pin. We daily see crane-flies (more com- 

 monly known as father-longlegs) footing it featly over the 

 grass, or " upstairs and downstairs," with one or more of its 

 half-dozen shanks deficient, and flying merrily, with scarce 

 even a leg left to walk on. 



Indeed the famous fable of Agrippa would by no means 

 apply to many of the insect race ; for with them, certainly, 

 there does not seem to exist the same degree of mutual depen- 

 dency observable in other animals between the body and the 

 members. The severed head of a wasp will bite, while its 

 severed leg clutches a morsel of sugar, as if they were saying 

 to the detached stomach, "We have no need of a digester ;" 

 and the dismembered body, in return, will sting furiously, as 

 if to reply, " And I have no need of a directing head or 

 assisting limbs." 



The same is exemplified in the instance of a dragon-fly, 

 which deprived of its long abdomen, was seen* to devour two 



* By Mr. Haworth. 



YOL. II 11. 



