182 MANY-FOOTED MOVERS. 



ners; but, in accordance with that system of compensation so 

 generally carried out amongst created things, it is chiefly 

 amongst insects that are destitute of wings (those comprised 

 in the Linnaean order Aptera) that we meet with such as are 

 most agile and dexterous in the use of their legs, which vary 

 in number from eight to above a hundred. 



These creatures with many feet, including spiders, mites, 

 and scorpions, with eight ; wood-lice, with fourteen ; centi- 

 pedes and millipedes, with a hundred and above, can, most 

 of them, move backwards and forwards, sideways, and in every 

 direction, with the most marvellous adroitness and rapidity, 

 though it sometimes better suits the purpose of the wily spider 

 to make his subtle advances almost imperceptibly. There is a 

 little mite, of a pale red with a black dot on the back, a fre- 

 quenter of strawberry-beds, which has been described as 

 "rather gliding or flying than using its legs/' its minuteness, 

 as observed by Eennie, adding to the surprise produced by its 

 movements, "for it is little larger than a grain of sand ; and 

 though the clods of garden-mould are mountains in compar- 

 ison to its size, it gallops over them at a thousand times 

 greater proportionate speed than the swiftest race-horse."* 



Until able to jump three times as high as St. Paul's, or to 

 vault a quarter of a mile, man must yield the palm of leaping 

 to the flea, the locust, and frog-hopper, which, relatively to 

 their size, have been calculated to do the like, and before 



* ' Insect Transformations.' 



