Chapter II: What May Be Seen on the Earth (3)

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The idea of a _muscular dynamometry_ of insects is not so new as one might be tempted to think it. From time immemorial men have been struck, without being able to account for it, by the enormous disproportion existing between the weight of a flea and the force or energy displayed by its extraordinary bounds. Hence the popularity of a recent exhibition in London of Performing Fleas. Pliny, eighteen centuries ago, asserted that the muscular strength of the ants exceeded that of all other animals, if we compared the burden they were able to carry with the diminutiveness of their bodies. "_Si quis comparet onera corporibus earum, fateatur nullis portione vires esse majores._"[71]

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this interesting question was taken up by Borelli, Lahire, Buffon, and Gueneau de Montbeliard. Recently it has been revived, with much ability, by Felix Plateau, whose experiments have proved that the insects, in comparison with their weight, possess an uncommon muscular force, far beyond that of vertebrate animals; that in the same group of insects this force varies in different species; and that in the small species it is often of astounding energy.

The muscles are enclosed in solid sheaths (so to speak), which constitute the jointed limbs of insects, and the thickness of the sides of these sheaths seems to decrease in ratio with the size. No relation, therefore, exists between the stature of individuals and the volume and strength of their muscles. A giant may be weaker than a dwarf. Here is another mystery for science to reveal!

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But we must take leave of our earwig. Its English name is derived by some authorities from _ear_, and the old English _wiega_, a worm or grub,--identical with the German _oberwurm_, and based, of course, on the fiction which we have already exploded.

Newman, however, suggests a somewhat different name, and, consequently, a different etymology:[72]--"The shape of the hind wings," he says, "when fully opened, is nearly that of the human ear; and from this circumstance it seems highly probable that the original name of this insect was _earwing_." But we cannot agree with Mr Newman.

It remains to be added, that the female earwig sits upon her eggs, and hatches them like a hen; and like a hen, too, she gathers her young around her with evident affection.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 58: "The term _perianth_ is usually confined to the flowers of Endogens, whatever colours they present, whether green, as in asparagus, or coloured, as in tulip. Some use the term as a general one, and restrict the use of _perigone_ to cases where a pistil is present, not applying it to unisexual flowers, in which stamens only are produced."--_Professor Balfour, "Manual of Botany_," p. 169.]

[Footnote 59: Homer, "Odyssey," Book xix., line 520.]

[Footnote 60: Grew, "Anatomy of Plants," p. 147.]

[Footnote 61: Barry Cornwall.]

[Footnote 62: Tragus, "Historia Stirpium," p. 310 (ed. 1552).]

[Footnote 63: Fabius Columna (Fabio Colonna), an Italian man of science, who died in 1650, at the age of eighty-three.]

[Footnote 64: Thomas Campbell.]

[Footnote 65: Anne Pratt, "Flowers and their Associations" (ed. 1846).]

[Footnote 66: _Draba aretoides_ has been found on Chimborazo at 16,000 feet.]

[Footnote 67: _Poa annua_ grows at an elevation of 7400 feet.]

[Footnote 68: Aristotle, "Hist. Animal.," i. 9.]

[Footnote 69: Pliny, "Hist. Nat.," xi. 52.]

[Footnote 70: Pliny, "Hist. Nat.," xxx. 7, 12, 24.]

[Footnote 71: Pliny, "Hist. Nat.," xi. 36.]

[Footnote 72: Newman, "Introduction to the History of British Insects."]