258 THE LIFE AND LOVE OF THE INSECT 



Most of the young ones are on the ground, pressed close 

 against the mother ; a few are stationed on the white 

 saddle-cloth, a delightful cushion. There are some who 

 clamber up the mother's tail, perch on the top of the bend 

 and seem to delight in looking down from that point 

 of vantage upon the crowd. More acrobats arrive, 

 who dislodge them and take their places. All want their 

 share in the curiosities provided by the gazebo. 



The bulk of the family is around the mother ; there is 

 a constant swarm of brats that crawl under the belly and 

 there squat, leaving their forehead, with the gleaming 

 black eye-points, outside. The more restless prefer the 

 mother's legs, which to them represent a gymnasium ; 

 they here swing as on a trapeze. Next, at their leisure, 

 the whole troop climb up to the spine again, resume their 

 places, settle down ; and nothing more stirs, neither 

 mother nor little ones. 



This period wherein the emancipation is matured and 

 prepared lasts for a week, exactly as long as the strange 

 labour that trebles the volume without food. The family 

 remains upon the mother's back for a fortnight, all told. 

 The Lycosa carries her young for six or seven months, 

 during which time they are always active and lively, 

 although unfed. What do those of the Scorpion eat, 

 at least after the excoriation that has given them 

 agility and a new life ? Does the mother invite them 

 to her meals and reserve the tenderest morsels of her 

 repasts for them ? She invites nobody ; she reserves 

 nothing. 



I serve her a Cricket, chosen among the small game 

 that seems to me best-suited to the delicate nature of her 

 sons. While she gnaws the morsel, without troubling in 

 the least about her surroundings, one of the little ones 



