Note 13 — Chapter II · SAPRINI, DERMESTES AND OTHERS

The creature’s most singular implement is the end of the intestine, which is covered with a horny substance prolonged into a stiff tube standing at right angles to the axis of the body. This member is an instrument of locomotion, an anal crutch. In walking, the animal presses the tip of this crutch to the ground and thrusts backwards as with a lever, while the legs struggle forward. Doré,13 the famous illustrator of extravagant notions, conceived a similar system. He shows us somewhere a legless cripple seated in a bowl supported by a pivot and working himself along on his hands. The artist’s grotesque imagination might well have been inspired by the grotesque appearance of the insect.