106 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



in triumph. The spider, however, instantly regained 

 it with her mandibles, and redoubled her endeavours 

 to snatch the bag from her enemy ; but her efforts 

 were vain, for the ant-lion, being the stronger, suc- 

 ceeded in dragging it under the sand. The unfortu- 

 nate mother, now robbed of her eggs, might have at least 

 saved her own life, as she could easily have escaped 

 out of the pit-fall ; but, wonderful to tell, she chose 

 rather to be buried alive along with her eggs. As the 

 sand concealed from my view what was passing below, 

 I laid hold of the spider, leaving the bag in the power 

 of the ant-lion. But the affectionate mother, de- 

 prived of her bag, would not quit the spot where she 

 had lost them, though I repeatedly pushed her with a 

 twig. Life itself seemed to have become a burden 

 to her since all her hopes and pleasures were gone for 

 ever.'* 



That some portion of heat may be communicated 

 to the eggs of the spider, which are thus carried so 

 assiduously under her body, is highly probable ; and 

 it is also, no doubt, advantageous to the young, when 

 hatched, to have the assistance of their mother to open 

 the bag for them, as was remarked by De Geer;| 

 ' without which,' says Kirby and Spence, c they 

 could never escape. 'J But that neither of these are 

 indispensable conditions we have ascertained by re- 

 peated experiments. We have taken a considerable 

 number of these egg-bags from their mothers, and 

 put them under inverted wine-glasses and into pill- 

 boxes, and in every instance the young have been 

 duly hatched, and made their way without assistance 

 out of the bag. In all these experiments, the young 

 spiders joined in concert in making a web across their 

 prison ; a circumstance at variance with the assertion 



* Bonnet, (Euvres, vol. ii, p. 435. 

 t De Geer, Mem. vol. vii, p. 194. 

 J Introd. i, p. 361. 



