188 INTERNAL ANATOMY OF INSECTS. 
Having thus laid before you all of importance that I 
can collect with regard to the apparatus of muscles dis- 
coverable in insects, I shail next say something upon a 
few other points connected with that subject. When I 
enlarged upon their motions, I related a few instances 
of the extraordinary power of that apparatus? in leaping 
ones; but this power is not confined to that circum- 
stance. The flea, not more remarkable for its com- 
pressed form, enabling it to glide between the hairs of 
animals, and its elastic coat of mail, by which it can re- 
sist the ordinary pressure of the fingers, than for its mus- 
cular strength, has attracted notice on this account from 
ancient times. Mouffet relates that an ingenious En- 
glish mechanic, named Mark, made a golden chain of 
the length of a finger, with a lock and key, which was 
dragged by a flea;—he had heard of another that was 
harnessed to a golden chariot, which it drew with the 
greatest ease>, Another English workman made an 
ivory coach with six horses, a coachman on the seat with 
a dog between his legs, a postillion, four persons in the 
coach, and four lacqueys behind—which also was dragged 
by a single flea. At such a spectacle one would hardly 
know which most to admire, the strength and agility of 
the insect, or the patience of the workman. Latreille 
mentions a flea of a moderate size dragging a silver can- 
non on wheels, that was twenty-four times its own weight, 
which being charged with powder, was fired without the 
flea appearing alarmed*. Many caterpillars are accus-_ 
tomed to extend their bodies from a twig, supported 
merely by the four hind feet, in one fixed attitude, either 
; Vou. II. p. 314—, * Mouttet Theatr. 275. 
© N, Dict. d Hist. Nat. xxviii. 249, 
