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Graber then turns to the analysis of the movements of insect legs when in motion, and the mode of walking of these insects in general. This subject had been but slightly investigated until Graber made a series of observations and experiments, of which we can give only the most important results.

The locomotion of insects is an extremely complicated subject.

Let us consider, Graber says, first, a running or carabid beetle, when walking merely with the fore and hind legs. The former will be bent forward and the latter backward.

“Let us begin with the left fore leg (Fig. 118, L1). Let the same be extended and fixed on the ground by means of its sharp claws and its pointed heel. Now what happens when the tibial flexors draw together? As the foot, and therefore the tibia also, have a firm position, then the contraction of the muscles named must cause the femur to approach the tibia, whereby the whole body is drawn along with it. This individual act of motion may be well studied in grasshoppers when they are climbing on a twig by stretching out their long fore leg directly forward, and then drawing up the body through the shortening of the tibial flexors until the middle leg also reaches the branch.