THE CRANE-FLY'S POISERS. 103 



placed behind each wing ; for what purpose it may puzzle 

 them to tell. These instruments which are by no means pecu- 

 liar to the Tipula, but possessed also by the common house 

 and other two-winged flies, are called poisers, and, as their 

 name imports, are considered to balance the body and render 

 the flight more steady, serving (as says Derham*) " to the 

 insect, as the long pole laden at the ends with lead does to the 

 rope-dancer." The same naturalist tells us that "if one of 

 these be cut off, the insect flies one side over the other and 

 falleth ;" and another, who supposes them air-holders, found 

 that a Tipula deprived of both could not fly at all. 



Of these same appendages it has also been suggested, that, 

 by their employment as veritable drumsticks beating on the 

 wings, they may assist in the production of that buzzing 

 sound, to account for which has puzzled not a few philoso- 

 phers. But however this may be with the two-winged band 

 in general, the little knobbed articles, to which we are now 

 directing special notice, are not thus employed, seeing that it 

 cannot be said of the crane-fly, as of some other fliers, and of 

 that celebrated lady " with rings on her fingers and bells on her 

 toes," that u the i longlegs' 1 makes music wherever he goes." 



Those who behold the crane-fly only in its proper person 

 in the elevated maturity of its stilted supporters must not 

 suppose it has been always thus exalted above its fellows, 

 nor, must they imagine it to have grown by degrees to its 



* In his ' Physico-Theology.' 



