AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 361 



ally turned over, sitting upon a cluster of young ones 

 just as this celebrated naturalist 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 ani- 

 mals which greedily devour their own species whenever 

 they have opportunity, should be susceptible of the 

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

 common under clods of earth (Lycosa saccata) which may 

 at once be distinguished by a white globular silken bag 

 about the size of a pea, in which she has deposited her 

 eggs, attached to the extremity of her body. Never miser 

 clung to his treasure with more tenacious solicitude than 

 this spider to her bag. Though apparently a conside- 

 rable incumbrance, she carries it with her every where. 

 If you deprive her of it, she makes the most strenuous 

 efforts for its recovery ; and no personal danger can force 

 her to quit the precious load. Are her efforts ineffec- 

 tual? A stupefying melancholy seems to seize her, and 

 when deprived of this first object 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 ac- 

 tions demonstrate the excess of her joy. She eagerly 

 seizes it, and with the utmost agility runs off with 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 ant-lion, a fe- 

 rocious insect which conceals itself at the bottom of a 

 i 



conical hole constructed in the sand for the purpose of 

 catching any unfortunate victim that may chance to fall 

 in. The spider endeavoured to run away, but was not 



