Our Common Insects: A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and HousesPackard, A. S. (Alpheus Spring)
Science
Our Common Insects: A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and Houses
Packard, A. S. (Alpheus Spring)
Insects
In walking, as seen in the accompanying figure (Fig. 8), three legs are
thrown forward at a time, two on one side and one on the other.
Flies and many other insects can walk upside down, or on glass, as
easily as on a level surface. A fly's foot, as in most other insects,
consists of five joints (tarsal joints), to the last one of which is
appended a pair of stout claws, beneath which is a flat, soft, fleshy
cushion or pad, split into two (sometimes three) flaps, beset on the
under surface with fine hairs. A part of these hairs are swollen at the
end, which is covered with "an elastic membranous expansion, capable of
close contact with a highly polished surface, from which a minute
quantity of a clear, transparent fluid is emitted when the fly is
actively moving." (T. West.) These hairs are hence called holding, or
tenent, hairs. With the aid of these, but mainly, as Mr. West insists,
by the pressure of the atmosphere, a fly is enabled to adhere to
perfectly smooth surfaces. His studies show the following curious facts.
"That atmospheric pressure, if the area of the flaps be alone
considered, is equal to just one-half the weight of a fly. If the area
covered by the tenent hairs be added, an increase of pressure is gained,
equal to about one-fourth the weight of a fly. This leaves one-fourth to
be accounted for by slight viscidity of the fluid, by the action I have
so often alluded to, which may be called 'grasping,' by molecular
attraction, and, doubtless, by other agents still more subtle, with
which we have at present scarcely any acquaintance."
_How Insects Fly._ Who of us, as remarked by an eminent ornithologist,
can even now explain the long sustained, peculiar flight of the hawk, or
turkey buzzard, as it sails in the air without changing the position of
its wings? and, we would add, the somewhat similar flight of a
butterfly? It is the poetry of motion, and a marvellous exhibition of
grace and ease, combined with a wonderful underlying strength and
lightness of the parts concerned in flight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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