INTERNAL ANATOMY OF INSECTS. 189 
in an oblique, horizontal, or vertical direction, either up- 
wards or downwards, and that for hours together. We 
may conceive what prodigious muscular force must be 
exerted upon this occasion, by reflecting that the most 
expert rope-dancer, though endued with the power of 
grasping with his feet like a bird with its claws, could 
not maintain himself in a horizontal position even for an 
instant. Bradley asserts that he has seen a stag-beetle 
carry a wand half a yard long and half an inch thick, 
and fly with it several yards*. Some insects. have the 
faculty of resisting pressure in a wonderful degree. If 
you take a common dung-chafer (Geotrupes) in your 
hand and press it with all your strength, you will find 
with what wonderful force it resists you; and that you 
can scarcely overcome the counteraction, and retain the 
insect in your hand: was it not for this quality, the grub 
of the gad-fly must be crushed probably in passing 
through the anal sphincter of the horse>. But that 
of Hlophilus tenax affords a more surprising instance 
of this power of counteraction :—an inhabitant of muddy 
pools, it has occasionally been taken up with the water 
used in paper-making, and strange to say, according to 
Linné, has resisted without injury the immense pres- 
sure given to the surrounding pulp‘; like leather-coat 
Jack mentioned by Mr. Bell4,_ who, from a similar force 
of muscle, could suffer carriages to drive over him without 
receiving any injury. Almost as remarkable is the state of 
extreme relaxation into which the muscles of some larvee 
fall, when their animation is suspended; and the revived 
4 Phil. Acc. of Works of Nat. 144. 
® Clark in Linn. Trans. iii. 309. © Fn. Suec. 1799. 
4 Anatomy of Expression in Painting. 170. 
