The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1875-08-26
The Strength of Insects.

when the most unpleasant lDlHgS hC
forced upon our attention, and we 1all
with our best efforts to rid ourselves OF
them. As warm weather advances, we
need no argument to convince US that
the insects which destroy our vegeta-
ton, offend us with their presence,
and even without permission cause our
own blood to course their veins, are
among the inevitables. To accept
these without complaint or rsplnlng
would surely give us undisputed title to
the name of philosophers; and If we
could find any thing of pleasure instead
of ANNOYANCE in our involuntary con-
temptation of them, we would be douo-
" worthy of the appellation. mat
they all serve some useful purpose, can
not be denied; and if we knew their
whole history we should doubtless be
fully convinced of this. Some OF our
greatest pests, as flies and mosquitoes,
have already been shown quite clearly
TO be our friends rather than our enc
mics.
Besides their practical benefit, there
is no little interest in noticing the great
physical force which they exert. We
call man. horse, a lion or an ele-
plant strong; but it is very easy to see
that, proportionally, insects are the
strongest animals that live. They man
fest their strength in running, leaping,
ivinr, and sometimes in other ways.
Some insects have been known to run
so rapidly that, if a man of ordinary
size should make as good time, proper
tionallv, he would run more than tWen-
tv miles per minute, or sixty times the
ordinary rate of a railroad train. a To-
Gust with the aid of its wings will leap
200 times its own length to equal which
man would need to leap nearly quar-
ter of a mile A flea, without wings,
will leap the same relative distance;
and it has been estimated that, if a
horse should Jump as far in proportion
to its weight, in would scale the Rocky
Mountains in single leap. Most
insects Jump by means of their hind
LEGS and latter part of the hind body !;
but one family of beetles-elateridG or
spring beetles-leap vertically when on
their backs, by use of a spine on the
hinder part of the thorax which fits into
a cavity behind it, and which, when
forcibly closed and acting ike a spring,
throws the beetle several inches into the
air. While in the very act of writing
this, one Of this family pays me visit,
and shows its power by making several
springs of at least siXiinches in height,
which is about twelve times it own
! length. Some dragon flies are among
the stongest on the wing. They can be
seen flying about pools of water after
] II ot
turning, wheeling, going sideways,
and in nearly every conceivable direc-
ton, and never seem to think of being
tired. And, what is very remarkable,
they have the power of changing at
right angles the direction of their flight,
and so suddenly that one can hardly
ever be quick enough to hit or capture
them. The Chronological Magazine
speaks of one of these that flew on a
vessel at sea when the nearest land was
! the coast of Africa, 500 miles away. A
humble bee has been seen to follow a
rail car going twenty miles per
hour, against strong wind, for a
considerable distance; and it even went
! faster than the car, as it flew to and fro
and in various zigZags around the We
hicle. Some beetles have flight
swifter, considering their size, than
any bird; and Linn9us mentions but
| tertly that sometimes travels more than
! a hundred miles on the wing at one
flight; he also says that an elephant hav-
ing the force Of a horn beetle would be
able to move mountain. All have
doubtless seen a beetle move a candle
stick or lamp in his efforts to es-
cape from underdeath it; and he
has been compared to a pris-
oner in Newgate shaking the build
inc with his back. Pliny said, long
ago, that, if we compare the loads OF
ants with the size of their bodies, 1T
must be allowed that no other animal
is endowed with such strength i'll pro
portion
Some interesting and ingenious eX-
perimentS for measuring the strength OF
insects have lately been made by Bel
gian naturalist named Plateau. He
first tested their power of raising
weights while walking on 4 level sur
face. His novel method of doing this
was to harness the insect by 4 horizon
tai thread running over an easily-mOv-
ing pulley, at the other end of which
was attached scale pan for holding
sand. To keep the insect in straight
direction, he fenced it in between two
parallel strips of glass; and to keep II
from slipping, he covered its track witt
coarse muslin. As the insect moved
forward, it pulled the thread over the
pulley and raised the pan, and the eN
perimenter poured sand into it until the
insect could move no longer. The in,
sect and the sand it had raised were
then weighed, and the relation between
the weight Of the two was obtained
He found that the insect could raiSC
forty times its own weight; while by {
similar method man could raise only
five-SiXths of his weight, and a horse
only one half or two-thirds of his. BY
, repeating each experiment three times
and employing a vast number of insects
of various sizes, and comparing his re
suits, he came to the conclusion tina
the smaller insects in the same grOuI
, invariably raise the greater weight IL
proportion to their own weight.
He then tried their leaping power
by fastening the wings and elytra, anC
by suspending under the thoraX (by ;
thread) bits of lead set in wax. He in
creased the weight till the insect cOulC
no longer raise it. Then, by his deter
limitations as before, he found that
while the largest crickets could raise il
|. this way only about one and hal
times their own weight, the smalle
ones could raise three or four time
theirs.
To test the pushing power of insects
; he placed some of them in a long card
: board tube BACKED on the inside ant
: admitting light only by a Transparent
glass at one end. To this glass was at
= tached a lever which drew the scale pal
over the pulley, as in the first expert
, ment. The insect, in its endeayorS t,
escape, pushed against the glass, movet
: the lever, and thus raised the weight
; As results of these experiments, h
I found that, in inverse ratio to thei
| weight, the pushing power varied from
} three or four to eighty or ninety time
: the insects weight.
The power of flight possessed by in
sects was tested by fixing weights to tn