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 the wings and wing-covers will presently employ.  Meanwhile the creature rests and recovers from its exertions.  Twenty minutes of waiting elapse.

Then, exerting the muscles of the back, the suspended insect raises itself and fixes the talons of the anterior limbs in the empty skin above it.  Never did acrobat, hanging by the toes to the bar of a trapeze, raise himself with so stupendous a display of strength in the loins.  This gymnastic feat accomplished, the rest is easy.