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Updated: May 6, 2025
Perched high upon the shanks of its four hind-legs, with its abdomen curled, its thorax raised erect, its front-legs, the traps and implements of warfare, folded against its chest, it sways limply from side to side, on the tip of the bough. Any one seeing it for the first time in its grotesque pose will give a start of surprise. The Tachytes knows no such alarm.
It had the plumage, the wings, head, beak, and front-legs of a griffin, and the rest like a horse. It was not made by enchantment, but was a creature of a natural kind found but very rarely in the Riphæan mountains, far on the other side of the Frozen Sea. With these gifts, high mounted in the air, the young ward of Atlantes was now making the grandest of grand tours.
On the head, ears and front-legs it should be short and smooth; on the neck the frill should be profuse and rather curly; on the chest and the rest of the body, the tail and hind-quarters, it should be long; the fore-legs being well feathered. TAIL Long, well feathered, and not gaily carried. It should be carried well down, almost touching the ground.
In consequence of these habits of theirs they had their front-legs and their heads resting upon the earth to which they were drawn by natural affinity; and the crowns of their heads were elongated and of all sorts of shapes, into which the courses of the soul were crushed by reason of disuse.
"Well, it ain't easy to say exactly. You see it was getting dark at the time, and I was doin' my best to drive a thief of a hox down a place in the kloof where it had to stand upright, a'most, on its front-legs, with its tail whirlin' in the hair.
The tarsi of the front-legs are dilated in many male beetles, or are furnished with broad cushions of hairs; and in many genera of water-beetles they are armed with a round flat sucker, so that the male may adhere to the slippery body of the female.
In order to advance, he raises both his front-legs at once, and places them at a small distance forward; at the same time the thumb of each foot points outward, and the creature catches with the claw at any thing which it can lay hold of; then he stretches behind him his two hind-legs, so that the five toes of each foot are also directed backward; he supports himself on the sole of this foot, and secures himself by means of the claws on his toes; then he raises his body on the front-legs, and throws himself forward by folding the upper arm on the fore-arm, which motion is assisted by the extension of the hind-legs, which also push the body forward This gait, though heavy, because the body falls to the ground at every step, is yet sometimes pretty quick, when the feet can readily meet with good holding-places; but when the claw of the front foot meets with any thing loose, the exertion is inefficient.
Suddenly the animal showed symptoms of unusual excitement, which became rapidly more violent, until, after some amazing antics, first on his front-legs and then on his hind-legs, he rolled over on his back, and kicked violently at the sky. His master knew what had happened, but stood lamenting afar off, not daring to go to the rescue.
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