INTRODUCTION 



spider and the egg ; hardly any two alike ; one nervous 

 and excitable, another calm and unhurried ; one care- 

 less in her work, another neat and thorough ; this one 

 suspicious, that one confiding ; one species digging its 

 burrow before it captures its game, others capturing the 

 game and then digging the hole ; one wasp hanging its 

 spider up in the fork of a weed to keep it away from the 

 ants while it works at its nest, and then running to it 

 every moment or two to see that it is safe ; another lay- 

 ing the insect on the ground while it digs, — verily a 

 queer little people, with a lot of wild nature about them, 

 and of human nature, too. 



John Burroughs. 



