408 FOOD OF INSECTS. 



wc arc accustomed to associate the ideas of neglect and 

 desertion by man — associations which both in painting 

 and allegory have been often happily applied. Ho- 

 garth, when he wished to produce a speaking picture of 

 neglected charity, clothed the poor's box in one of his 

 pieces with a spider's web : and the Jews, in one of 

 the fables with which they have disfigured the records 

 of holy writ, have not less ingeniously availed them- 

 selves of the same idea. They relate that the reason 

 why Saul did not discover David and his men in the 

 cave of Adullam"^ was, that God had sent a spider 

 which had quickly woven a web across the entrance of 

 the cave in which they were concealed ; which being 

 observed by Saul, he thought it useless to investigate 

 further a spot bearing such evident proofs of the ab- 

 sence of any human being''. 



The most incurious observer must have remarked 

 the great difference which exists in the construction of 

 spiders' webs. Those which we most commonly see in 

 houses are of a woven texture similar to fine gauze, 

 and are appropriately termed webs ; while those most 

 frequently met with in the fields are composed of a 

 series of concentric circles united by radii diverging 

 from the centre, the threads being remote from each 

 other. These last, which in their simple state, or still 

 more when studded Avith dew drops, you must have a 

 thousand times admired, are with greater propriety 

 termed nets ; and the insects which form them proceed- 

 ing on geometrical principles may be called geometri- 

 cians^ while the former can aspire only to the humbler 

 denomination of weavers. I shall endeavour to describe 



" ! Sam. xxiv. 4. - " Lesser, L. ii. 291. 



