64 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 
of expression in a great variety of gestures; as 
matrimonial advertisements; as egg-holders and 
incubators; and finally, as baby carriages, — for in 
all these ways do tails enter into the ministry of 
limbs to one or another animal. 
And here it is well to broaden out the word 
“tail” so as to include more posterior appendages 
than are included in my first strict definition. 
Nevertheless, we must draw the line inside of 
popular usage even here. The prolongations of 
the wings of certain butterflies, for instance, are 
not “tails,” though entomologists term them so in 
a special sense; nor would it be allowable to in- 
clude the spinnerets of spiders, nor the stings 
of bees, nor the ovipositors of many insects, 
although these sometimes extend in hair-like tubes 
beyond the tip of the abdomen, nor the apparently 
similar breathing-tubes of the Ranatra bugs. 
But it is right to speak of the “tail” of the 
scorpion-fly (Panorpa),— which is articulated ex- 
actly like that of a scorpion,—of the skip-jack 
beetle, and of a few other insects; while the word 
is fairly applied to certain worms, to all the 
swimming crabs, the cuttle-fishes, and even tc 
gasteropod mollusks, wherever the body is length- 
ened out into a more or less serviceable hinder part. 
Let us take up some of these utilities in their 
order and illustrate them. What animals, to begin 
with, employ their tails as a shelter? Well, the 
great ant-eater does so, for one. The tail of the 
