HATCHING OF EGGS. 105 



hatch her eggs the better, she carries them about as 

 it were in a case, with wonderful solicitude and affec- 

 tion ; insomuch, that when the skin forming this case, 

 which hangs to the hinder part of her body, is by 

 any accident broken off, the little insect seeks after 

 it with as much earnestness and industry as a hen for 

 her lost chickens, and when found fastens it again 

 to its place with the greatest marks of joy.'* 



Bonnet has given a more detailed account of the 

 manners of ttys spider, which, though no less fierce 

 and ferocious in aspect than her congeners, manifests 

 an extraordinary change of mien when forcibly depriv- 

 ed of her eggs. Then she instantly appears tame, 

 stops to look around her, and begins to walk at a slow 

 pace, and search on every side for what she has lost, 

 nor will she even fly when one threatens to seize her. 

 But should the experimenter, moved with compassion, 

 restore her bag of eggs, she catches it up with all haste, 

 and darts away in a moment ; or, when left undisturb- 

 ed, will leisurely attach it again to her body. 



' With a view,' continues Bonnet, ' to put this 

 singular attachment to a novel test, I one day threw 

 a spider with her eggs into the pit-fall of an ant-lion 

 (Myrmelion formicariwn) ."\ The spider endeavoured 

 to escape, and was eagerly remounting the side of the 

 pit, when I again tumbled her to the bottom, and the 

 ant-lion, more nimble than the first time, seized the bag 

 of eggs with its mandibles, and attempted to drag it 

 under the sand. The spider, on the other hand, made 

 the most strenuous efforts to keep her hold, and strug- 

 gled hard to defeat the aim of the concealed depreda- 

 tor ; but the gum which fastened her bag, not being 

 calculated to withstand such violence, at length gave 

 way, and the ant-lion was about to carry off the prize 



* Book of Nature, pt i, p. 24. 

 t See Insect Architecture, p. 209. 



