INGENUITY OP INSECTS. 71 



claim to those attributes. We do not here allude to that 

 instinctive endowment, which guides the different spe- 

 cies to deposite their eggs in places where the young 

 when hatched, perhaps many months afterwards, will 

 immediately find the aliment best adapted to their con- 

 dition ; nor to that apparent foreknowledge with re- 

 spect to time, by which there is a precise adaptation in 

 the state of the plant to the want of the young larva ; 

 for these are mysteries of which we can say nothing, 

 except that they are the means which the Creator has 

 taken to perpetuate his works. 



By the ingenuity of Insects, we mean that endowment 

 by which they plan and execute, various structures for 

 convenience, or comfort, and which are varied accord- 

 ing to circumstances ; and also the devices which they 

 employ for the purposes of entrapping, or escaping each 

 other. 



Ingenuity of Spiders. Thus one species of Spider 

 constructs her net for catching game, in a place where 

 he thinks such flies as best suit her appetite are most 

 likely to come ; and being sensible that her presence is 

 frightful to those insects which she would make her vic- 

 tims, she takes the precaution to conceal herself with far 

 more cunning than the cat, or even the tiger. The Spi- 

 der having finished its game net, next goes to work to 

 make a place of ambush, where it can repose in com- 

 fort, until some poor fly not seeing the trap, gets en- 

 tangled in it. The place of ambush is some sly crevice 

 at a distance from the net. In this it constructs a tube 

 of silk, the entrance of which is no larger than abso- 

 lutely necessary, and is often entirely concealed from 

 external view. This is constructed somewhat like a 

 sack with a small mouth, the interior being enlarged, so 

 that the inmate can stretch out its limbs, and turn around 

 with facility. But that the cunning Insect may not be 

 under the necessity of watching continually at the 

 mouth of its ambuscade, it carries a cord from some 

 convenient part of it to the net, and having carefully 

 fastened both ends, retires to wait the result of its craf- 

 tiness. The least motion of the game net, instantly 

 brings the owner to the mouth of its ambuscade, the 



