WALKING OF INSECTS. 179 



powers of a kind possessed by no other living creatures with 

 which we are acquainted. 



But the best way, perhaps, to obtain a tolerable notion of 

 the extent and perfection of insect activities, will be to divide 

 them into two classes, the one consisting of movements com- 

 mon to other animals, the other of those nearly or quite pecu- 

 liar to themselves. 



First, for that most ordinary mode of progression, walking. 

 This, among insects, (most of which are possessed, in their 

 perfect state, of six legs) varies in rate or pace from the slow- 

 est creep to the swiftest run. The Coleoptera, or Beetle-tribe, 

 alone furnish instances of each degree of progression exem- 

 plified in its extremes by the laborious creep of the oil-beetle,* 

 overwhelmed, seemingly, by oozing fatness, and the light, 

 rapid, agile course of the predatory Carabus* or that of the 

 rapacious Cidndela, resembling 



" The forest's leaping panther, 

 Fierce, beautiful, and fleet." 



Some butterflies amongst others, the little " Tortoise-shell" 

 may be designated insect quadrupeds, inasmuch as of their 

 six legs the two foremost being very short and imperfect, four 

 only serve the purpose of walking ; an accomplishment by the 

 way, in which butterflies in general, like the ladies of England, 

 do not particularly excel. If rapidity of pace depended on the 

 number of instruments employed in walking, both butterfly 



* See Vignette. 



