AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 363 



ries them about with her and feeds them until their first 

 moult, when they are big enough to provide their own 

 subsistence. I have more than once been gratified by 

 a sight of this interesting spectacle ; and when I nearly 

 touched the mother, thus covered by hundreds of her 

 progeny, it was most amusing to see them all leap from 

 her back and run away in every direction. 



A similar attachment to their eggs and young is mani- 

 fested by many other species of the same tribe, particu- 

 larly of the genera Lycosa and Dolomeda. Cluhiona ho- 

 losericea was found by De Geer in her nest with fifty or 

 sixty young ones, when manifesting nothing of her usual 

 timidity, so obstinately did she persist in remaining with 

 them, that to drive her away it was necessary to cut her 

 whole nest in pieces^. 



I must now conduct you to a hasty survey of those 

 insects which live together in societies and fabricate 

 dwellings for the community, such as ants, "ooasps, bees, 

 humble-bees, and termites, whose great object (sometimes 

 combined indeed with the storing up of a stock of winter 

 provisions for themselves) is the nutrition and education 

 of their young. Of the proceedings of many of these 

 insects we know comparatively nothing. Thei'e are, it 

 is likely, some hundreds of distinct species of bees which 

 live in societies, and form nests of a different and pecu- 

 liar construction. The constitution of these societies is 

 probably as various as the exterior forms of their nests, 

 and their habits possibly curious in the highest degree; 

 yet our knowledge is almost confined to the economy 

 of the hive-bee and of some species of humble-bees. The 

 ' De Geer, vii. 3{J8. 



