FATHER LONG-LEGS AND HIS FAMILY. 



" The so-called superfluities of nature 

 Are growths but fancied, sprung of Ignorance." 



to the butterfly and the lady-bird, we may perhaps 

 assign a place, among the insect familiars of our childhood, 

 to that ungainly skipper best known to us, wheresoever we 

 may meet him "upstairs or downstairs or in my lady's 

 chamber " as " Old Father Longlegs." 



Our book-learning may have possibly made us acquainted 

 with him, since, under the more refined epithet of Tipula, or 

 Crane-fly ; but call the creature by what name we may 



