204 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 



remarkable in every other department of nature, still more nearly ap- 

 proaches the habits of the hen in her care of her family. She absolutely 

 sits upon her eggs as if to hatch them a fact which Frisch appears first 

 to have noticed and guards them with the greatest care. De Geer, 

 having found an earwig thus occupied, removed her into a box where was 

 some earth, and scattered the eggs in all directions. She soon, however, 

 collected them one by one with her jaws into a heap, and assiduously 

 sat upon them as before. The young ones, which resemble the parent 

 except in wanting elytra and wings, and, strange to say, are as soon as 

 born larger than the eggs which contained them, immediately upon being 

 hatched creep like a brood of chickens under the belly of the mother, who 

 very quietly suffers them to push between her feet, and will often, as De 

 Geer found, sit over them in this posture for some hours. 1 This remark- 

 able fact I have myself witnessed, having found an earwig under a stone 

 which I accidentally 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 

 animals which greedily devour their own species whenever they have op- 

 portunity, 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 

 considerable incumbrance, she carries it with her everywhere. 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 ineffectual ? a stupifying 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 actions 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 fero- 

 cious insect which conceals itself at the bottom of a conical hole con- 

 structed 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 sufficiently active to prevent the ant-lion from seizing her bag of eggs, 

 which it attempted to pull under the sand. She made the most violent 

 efforts to defeat the aim of her invisible foe, and on her part struggled with 

 all her might. The gluten, however, which fastened her bag, at length gave 

 way, and it separated : but the spider instantly regained it with her jaws, 

 and redoubled her efforts to rescue the prize from her opponent. It was 

 in vain : the ant-lion was the stronger of the two, and in spite of all her 

 struggles dragged the object of contestation under the sand. The unfor- 

 tunate mother might have preserved her own life from the enemy : she had 

 but to relinquish the bag, and escape out of the pit. But, wonderful 

 example of maternal affection ! she preferred allowing herself to be buried 



1 De Geer, iii. 548. 



