360 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG, 



markable fact I have myself witnessed, having foinui 

 an earwig under a stone which I accidentally turned 

 over, sitting upon a cluster of young ones just as this 

 celebrated naturali-^t has described. 



We are so accustomed to associate the ideas of cruelty 

 and ferocity with the name of spider, that to attribute 

 parental affection to any of the tribe seems at first view 

 almost preposterous. Who indeed could suspect that 

 animals which greedily devour their own species when- 

 ever they have opportunity, should be susceptible of 

 the finer feelings ? Yet such is the fact. There is a 

 spider common under clods of earth (Arauea saccata, L.) 

 w hich may at once be distinguished by a white globular 

 silken bag about the size of a pea, in which she has de- 

 posited her eggs, attached to the extremity of her body. 

 Never miser clung to his treasure with more tenaciouy 

 solicitude than this spider to her bag. Though appa- 

 rently a considerable incumbrance, she carries it with 

 her every where. If you deprive her of it, she makoa 

 the most strenuous efforts for its recovery ; and no 

 personal danger can force her to quit the precious load. 

 Are her efforts ineffectual ? A stupefying melancholy 

 seems to seize her, and when deprived of this first ob- 

 ject of her cares, existence itself appears to have lost 

 its charms. If she succeeds in regaining her bag, or 

 you restore it to her, her actions demonstrate the ex- 

 cess of her joy. She eagerly seizes it, and with the 

 utmost agility runs off w ith it to a place of security. 

 Bonnet put this wonderful attachment to an affecting 

 and decisive test. He threw a spider with her bag into 

 the cavern of a large ajit-lion, a ferocious insect whicii 

 conceals itself at the bottom of a conical hole cou- 



