NATUKE AND HER HARMONIES. 35 



parent. He ran instantly to the old position he had been 

 routed from on the back of the neck, and while the roach was 

 employed in soothing the smart of the bite, he succeeded in 

 enveloping the head from the back in such a way as to pre- 

 vent the roach from straightening out again ; and in a little 

 while more had him bound in that position, and entirely 

 surrounded by the web. 



A few more last agonies and the roach was dead ; for the 

 neck, bent forward in this way, exposed a vital part beneath 

 the sheath ; and we left the spider quietly luxuriating upon the 

 fruits of his weary contest. This battle between brute force and 

 subtle sagacity lasted one hour and a half, and if the history of 

 Reason in our Race can show a more remarkable conquest 

 of superior mind over animal strength, we hope the wiles of 

 the sagacious victor will not be robbed of their glory by being 

 stigmatized as instinctive. 



But the books of Natural History are crowded with ten 

 thousand such illustrations ; no just details of the habitudes 

 of any form of animal life has been, or can be given, which 

 will not furnish such. Though the narrators themselves per- 

 sist in naming these acts instinctive, yet common judgment 

 must teach that no possible sense of instinct can be made sat- 

 isfactorily to account for them. 



Every day my horse or dog to go no further forced the 

 conviction, that this must be so ; that they shared with me, 

 to a certain point, reason and emotion. The most eager and 

 accurate investigation showed us that the whole argument for 

 instinct was based upon error; that the facts upon which its 

 most ingenious defenders formed their strong positions, melted 

 into thin air before a close examination, and proved to be 

 pedantic whims or mistakes of old writers, perpetuated by 

 the careless ignorance of modern bookmakers. 



Since such men as Humboldt, 'Cuvier and Audubon 

 have taught the world how the meaning of the sublime 

 pages of the living revelation was to be arrived at have 

 forced upon their fellows a realization of the astounding 



