448 



HISTORY OF INSECTS. 



transmutation. For this, nothing but a long 

 and intimate acquaintance will suffice ; but, in 

 general, all animals resembling the flea, the 

 louse, the spider, the bug, the wood-louse, the 

 water-louse, and the scorpion, never acquire 

 wings, but are produced from the egg in that 

 form which they never change afterwards. 



If we con^sider this class as distinct from 

 others, we shall find them in general longer 

 lived than theirest, and often continuing their 

 term beyond one season, which is the ordi- 

 nary period of an insect's existence. They 

 seem also Jjess subject to the influence of the 

 weather ;"" and often endure the rigours of 

 winter without being numbed into torpidity. 

 The whole race of moths, butterflies, bees, and 

 flies, are rendered lifeless by the return of 

 cold weather ; but we need not to be told, that 

 the louse, the flea, and many of these wingless 

 creatures, that seem formed to tease mankind, 

 continue their painful depredations the whole 

 year round. 



They come to perfection in the egg, as was 

 said before ; and it sometimes happens, that 

 when the animal is interrupted in performing 

 the offices of exclusion, the young ones burst 

 the shell within the parent's body, and are 

 thus brought forth alive. This not unfre- 

 quently happens with the wood-louse, and 

 others of the kind, which are sometimes seen 

 producing eggs, and sometimes young ones 

 perfectly formed. 



Though these creatures are perfect from the 

 beginning yet they are often, during their ex- 

 istence, seen to change their skin: this is a 

 faculty which they possess in common with 

 many of the higher ranks of animals, and 

 which answer the same purposes. However 

 tender their skins may seem to our feel, yet, 

 if compared to the animal's strength and size, 

 they will be found to resemble a coat of mail, 

 or, to talk more closely, the shell of a lobster. 

 By this skin these animals are defended from 

 accidental injuries, and particularly from the 

 attacks of each other. Within this they con- 

 tinue to grow, till their bodies become so 

 large as to be imprisoned in their own cover- 

 ing, and then the shell bursts, but is quickly 

 replaced by a new one. 



Lastly, these animals are endued with a de- 

 gree of strength , for their size , that at first might 

 exceed credibility. Had man an equal degree 

 of strength, bulk for bulk, with a louse or flea, 

 the history of Samson would be no longer 

 miraculous. A flea will draw a chain a hun- 

 dred times heavier than itself ; and to com- 

 pensate for this force, will eat ten times its 

 own size of provision in a single day. 



CHAP. III. 



OF THE SPIDER, AND ITS VARIETIES. 1 



THE animal that deserves our first notice in 

 this principal order of insects is the Spider, 



1 Modern naturalists do not rank spiders among insect?, 

 because they have no antennae, and no division between 

 the head and the shoulders ; they breathe by leaf-shaped 

 gills, situated under the belly, instead of spiracles in the 

 sides ; have a heart connected with these ; have eight 

 legs instead of six ; and eight fixed eyes. But as spiders 

 are popularly considered insects, it will sufficiently suit 

 our purpose to introduce them here as such. The neat- 

 est, though the smallest spider's nest which we have seen, 

 was constructed in the chink of a garden post, which we 

 had cut out the previous summer in getting at the cells 

 of a carpenter-bee. The architect was one of the larger 

 hunting-spiders erroneously said by some naturalists to 

 be incapable of spinning. The nest in question was 

 about two inches high, composed of a very close satin- 

 like texture. There were two parallel chambers placed 

 perpendicularly, in which position also the inhabitant 

 reposed there during the day, going, as we presume, 

 only abroad to prey during the night. But the most re- 

 markable circumstance was, that the openings (two above 

 and two below) were so elastic, that they shut almost as 

 closely as the boat cocoon of the Tortrix chlorana. We 

 observed this spider for several months, but at last it dis- 

 appeared, and we took the nest out, under the notion that 

 it might contain eggs; hut we found none, and there- 

 fore concluded that it was only used as a day retreat. 

 The account which Evelyn has given of these hunting- 

 spiders is so interesting, that we must transcribe it. 



" Of all sorts of insects," says he, "there is none has 

 afforded me more divertisement than the venatores 

 (hunters), which are a sort of lupi (wolves) that have 

 their dens in rugged walls and crevices of our houses ; 

 a small brown and delicately-spotted kind of spiders, 

 whose hinder legs are longer than the rest. Such I did 

 frequently observe at Rome, which, espying a fly at three 

 or four yards distance upon the balcony where I stood, 

 would not make directly to her, but crawl under the 

 rail, till being arrived at the antipodes, it would steal 

 up, seldom missing its aim ; but if it chanced to want 

 any thing of being perfectly opposite, would, at first 

 peep, immediately slide down again, till, taking bettei 

 notice, it would come the next time exactly upon the 

 fly's back : but if this happened not to be within a com- 

 petent leap, then would this insect move so softly, as the 

 very shadow of the gnomon seemed not to be more im- 

 perceptible, unless the fly moved ; and then would the 

 spider move also in the same proportion, keeping that 

 just time with her motion as if the same soul had ani- 

 mated both these little bodies ; and whether it were for- 

 wards, backwards, or to either side, without at all turn- 

 ing her body, like a well managed horse : but if the 

 capricious fly took wing and pitched upon another place 

 behind our huntress, then would the spider whirl its body 

 so nimbly about, as nothing could be imagined more 

 swift ; by which means she always kept the head towards 

 her prey, though, to appearance, as immovable as if it 

 had been a nail driven into the wood, till by that indis- 

 cernible progress (being arrived within the sphere of her 

 reach) she made a fatal leap, swift as lightning, upon the 

 fly, catching him in the pole, where she never quitted 

 hold till her belly was full, and then carried the remain- 

 der home." 



One feels a little sceptical, however, when he adds, 

 " I have beheld them instructing their young ones how 

 to hunt, which they wo'ild sometimes discipline for not 



