160 THE WONDERS OF INSTINCT 



the little ones take the sun. The least brush against the 

 gallery unseats a part of the family. The mishap is not 

 serious. The Hen, fidgeting about her Chicks, looks for 

 the strays, calls them, gathers them together. The Ly- 

 cosa knows not these maternal alarms. Impassively, she 

 leaves those who drop off to manage their own difficulty, 

 which they do with wonderful quickness. Commend me 

 to those youngsters for getting up without whining, dust- 

 ing themselves and resuming their seat in the saddle! 

 The unhorsed ones promptly find a leg of the mother, the 

 usual climbing-pole ; they swarm up it as fast as they can 

 and recover their places on the bearer's back. The liv- 

 ing bark of animals is reconstructed in the twinkling of 

 an eye. 



To speak here of mother-love were, I think, extrava- 

 gant. The Lycosa's affection for her offspring hardly 

 surpasses that of the plant, which is unacquainted with 

 any tender feeling and nevertheless bestows the nicest and 

 most delicate care upon its seeds. The animal, in many 

 cases, knows no other sense of motherhood. What cares 

 the Lycosa for her brood! She accepts another's as 

 readily as her own ; she is satisfied so long as her back 

 is burdened with a swarming crowd, whether it issue 

 from her ovaries or elsewhere. There is no question 

 here of real maternal affection. 



I have described elsewhere the prowess of the Copris 

 watching over cells that are not her handiwork and do 

 not contain her offspring. With a zeal which even the 

 additional labor laid upon her does not easily weary, she 

 removes the mildew from the alien dung-balls, which far 



