SPIDER. 199 



meadow and the pasture ground, strip the trees of their 

 leaves, and the garden of its beauty ; the visitation of a 

 few minutes destroys the expectation of a year, and a 

 famine but too frequently ensues. In their native tropical 

 climates they are not so dreadful as in the more southern 

 parts of Europe. There, though the plain and the forest be 

 stripped of their verdure, the power of vegetation is so 

 great, that an interval of three or four days repairs the ca- 

 lamity ; bul our verdure is the livery of a season, and we 

 must wait till the ensuing spring repairs the damage. 

 Besides, in their long flights to this part of the world, 

 they are famished by the tediousness of their journey, and 

 are therefore more voracious wherever they happen to 

 settle. But it is not by what they devour, that they do so 

 much damage, as by what they destroy. Their very bite 

 is thought to contaminate the plant, and to prevent its 

 vegetation. To use the expression of the husbandman, 

 they burn whatever they touch, and leave the marks of 

 their devastation for two or three years ensuing. But if 

 "they be noxious while living, they are still more so when 

 dead ; for wherever they fall, they infect the air in such a 

 manner, that the smell is insupportable. Orosius tells us, 

 that in the year of the world 3810, there was an incredible 

 number of locusts which infected Africa ; and after having 

 eaten up every thing that was green, they flew off, and 

 were drowned in the African Sea, where they caused such 

 a stench, that the putrefying bodies of hundreds of 

 thousands of men could not equal it. 



In some parts of the world the inhabitants turn what 

 seems a plague to their own advantage. Locusts are eaten 

 by the natives in many kingdoms of the East ; and are 

 caught in small nets provided for that purpose. 



THE SPIDER. 



Formed for a life of rapacity and incapable of living upon 

 any other than- insect food, all its habits are calculated to 

 deceive and surprise ; it spreads toils to entangle its prey, 

 it is endued with patience to expect its coming, and is pos- 

 sessed of arms and strength to destroy it when fallen into 

 the snare. 



In this country, where all insect tribes are kept under 

 by human assiduity, the spiders are small and harmless. 

 We are acquainted' with few but the House Spider, which 



