170 SECRETS OF ANIMAL LIFE 
drinking drops of dew. If we catch one by the leg 
it surrenders it instantaneously and stalks away. 
The same sort of profitable autotomy is exhibited 
by some spiders and by some insects, such as 
grasshoppers, crickets, and their relatives. A quaint 
case is that of the Termites, or white ants, which 
shed their wings when they settle down, after their 
so-called ‘nuptial flight.” The amputation in all 
these cases is rapid and reflex, and there is no 
bleeding. But precise knowledge of the physiology 
of autotomy is far to seek except in the case of 
the higher Crustaceans, to which we shall now pass 
with special reference to the recent work of Mr. J. 
Herbert Paul.* 
(1) It has been recorded in regard to a common 
amphipod Crustacean, called Gammarus, that if a 
leg be injured the animal bites it down to the base— 
a quaintly deliberate autophagy. (2) If a prawn’s 
leg be violently seized, the animal gives a vigorous 
jerk with its tail and the leg breaks off at the base 
between the second and third joint. If the breakage 
fails, the prawn may be seen to tug at the limb 
with its jaws, thus harking back towards autophagy. 
(3) If the leg of a lobster or crayfish be seized, it 
always breaks at the level of a groove in the third 
basal segment. There is a definite breaking-plane. 
Moreover, before the animal strikes with its tail, a 
muscle in the third joint weakens the limb at the 
level of the breaking groove by pulling inwards 
* Proc. Royal Soc. Edinburgh, xxxv. (1918), pp. 78-94, 4 
plates, and pp. 232-262, 29 figs. 
