is completely
extricated.

The leg in process of liberation is not the leg with which the locust
makes its leaps; it has not as yet the rigidity which it will soon
acquire. It is soft, and eminently flexible. In those portions which the
progress of the moult exposes to view I see the legs bend under the mere
weight of the suspended insect when I tilt the supporting cover. They
are as flexible as two strips of elastic indiarubber. Yet even now
consolidation is progressing, for in a few minutes the proper rigidity
will be acquired.

Further along the limbs, in the portions which the sheathing still
conceals, the legs are certainly softer still, and in the state of
exquisite plasticity--I had almost said fluidity--which allows them to
pass through narrow passages almost as a liquid flows.

The teeth of the saws are already there, but have nothing of their
imminent rigidity. With the point of a pen-knife I can partially uncover
a leg and extract the spines from their serrated mould. They are germs
of spines; flexible buds which bend under the slightest pressure and
resume their position the moment the pressure is removed.

These needles point backwards as the leg is drawn out of the sheath; but
they re-erect themselves and solidify as they emerge. I am witnessing
not the mere removal of leggings from limbs already clad in finished
armour, but a kind of creation which amazes one by its promptitude.

Very much in the same way, but with far less delicate precision, the
claws of the crayfish, at the period of the moult, withdraw the soft
flesh of their double fingers from their stony sheath.

Finally the long stilt-like legs are free. They are folded gently
against the furrowed thighs, thus to mature undisturbed. The abdomen
begins to emerge. Its fine tunic-like covering splits, and wrinkles, but
still encloses the extremity of the abdomen, which adheres to the
moulted skin for some little time longer. With the exception of this one
point the entire insect is now uncovered.

It hangs head downwards, like a pendulum, supported by the talons of the
now empty leg-cases. During the whole of the lengthy and meticulous
process the four talons have never yielded. The whole operation has been
conducted with the utmost delicacy and prudence.

The insect hangs motionless, held by the tip of the abdomen. The abdomen
is disproportionately distended; swollen, apparently, by the reserve of
organisable humours which the expansion of