The insect stands on the bushes back upwards; it keeps its balance in the regular attitude and turns over only in circumstances that occur at long intervals.

The protracted suspension of my captives is all the more remarkable inasmuch as it is not at all an innate habit of their race.
It reminds one of the Bats, who hang, head downwards, by their hind-legs from the roof of their caves.

A special formation of the toes enables birds to sleep on one leg, which automatically and without fatigue clutches the swaying bough.

The Empusa shows me nothing akin to their contrivance.

The extremity of her walking-legs has the ordinary structure: a double claw at the tip, a double steelyard-hook; and that is all.
I could wish that anatomy would show me the working of the muscles and nerves in those tarsi, in those legs more slender than threads, the action of the tendons that control the claws and keep them gripped for ten months, unwearied in waking and sleeping.