A SHARP LOOKOUT 



upon them until it hatches its young from 

 them. A little careful observation would 

 have shown him that this was only a half 

 truth ; that the whole truth was, that the 

 spiders were entombed with the Qgg of the 

 wasp to serve as food for the young when 

 the egg shall have hatched. 



What curious questions Plutarch dis- 

 cusses, as, for instance, '' What is the reason 

 that a bucket of water drawn out of a well, 

 if it stands all night in the air that is in the 

 well, is more cold in the morning than the 

 rest of the water ? " He could probably 

 have given many reasons why " a watched 

 pot never boils." The ancients, the same 

 author says, held that the bodies of those 

 killed by lightning never putrefy ; that the 

 sight of a ram quiets an enraged elephant ; 

 that a viper will lie stock still if touched by 

 a beechen leaf ; that a wild bull grows tame 

 if bound with the twigs of a fig-tree ; that a 

 hen purifies herself with straw after she has 

 laid an egg ; that the deer buries his cast- 

 off horns ; that a goat stops the whole herd 

 by holding a branch of the sea-holly in his 

 mouth, etc. They sought to account for 

 such things without stopping to ask, Are 

 they true ? Nature was too novel, or else 



203 



