MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 253 



but little use to insects if they had not courage to em- 

 ploy them : in this quality, however, they are by no 

 means deficient; for, their diminutive size considered, 

 they are, many of them, the most valiant animals in na- 

 ture. The giant bulk of an elephant would not deter a 

 hornet, a bee, or even an ant, from attacking it, if it "was 

 provoked. I once observed a small spider walking in 

 my path. On putting my stick to it, it immediately 

 turned round as if to defend itself. On the approach 

 of my finger, it lifted itself up and stretched out its legs 

 to meet it. In Ray's Letters mention is made of a sin- 

 gular combat between a spider and a toad fought at 

 Hetcorne near Sittinghurst a in Kent ; but as the par- 

 ticulars and issue of this famous duel are not given, I 

 can only mention the circumstance, and conjecture that 

 the spider was victorious b ! Terrible as is the dragon- 

 fly to the insect world in general, putting to flight and de- 

 vouring whole hosts of butterflies, may-flies, and others 

 of its tribes, it instills no terror into the stout heart of 

 the scorpion-fly (Panorpa communis), though much its 

 inferior in size and strength. Lyonnet saw one attack a 

 dragon-fly of ten times its own bigness, bring it to the 

 ground, pierce it repeatedly with its proboscis ; and had 

 he not by his eagerness parted them, he doubts not it 

 would have destroyed this tyrant of the insect cre- 

 ation c . 



When the death's-head-hawk-moth was introduced 



numerous. They are very active, and have been observed to take 

 flies by surprise. A person stung by one of them lost his senses in 

 five minutes, and was so ill for several days that his life was despair- 

 ed of. a Hedcorne near Sittingbourne 

 b Dr. Long in Ray's Letters, 370. c Lesser L. i. 263. Note J, 



