286 SPIDERS AND PLANTS. 



catch-fly, the Venus's fly-trap, and the pitcher-plant, appro- 

 priate to their own nourishment, if not the very juices of the 

 insects they entrap, the air at least evolved from them in the 

 process of putrefaction ; and, this admitted, the imprisoning 

 vegetable and the imprisoning animal, the one subsisting 

 wholly, the other partially on the juices of their victims, 

 must be allowed to be tolerable representatives of each 

 other. 



But we have dwelt, perhaps, "over long on those exceedingly 

 ugly features of resemblance by which the spider is marked 

 out so clearly as a member of that cunning, ferocious, flesh- 

 eating family of which we constitute the head. Let us turn 

 now to the brighter side of the Aranea portraiture, for a 

 brighter side belongs to it. Against spider vices we have, as 

 against human, a set-off of virtues ; or, to speak less as of a 

 moral agent, against instincts of abhorrent, we have some of 

 pleasing, character. Foremost among them stands maternal 

 tenderness, or its very image, shown in the devoted care 

 evinced by weaving mothers of the " treasure " they " tie up " 

 so carefully "in silken bags ;" and not alone do they care for 

 it while thus enveloped in the shape of little senseless eggs, 

 but when from each egg has issued forth a little sentient 

 spinner. But having already allotted to their careful guardian 

 her deserved place amongst maternal insect worthies, we shall 

 here only notice further, that even by this single point of ten- 

 derness in her ferocious whole, she is only linked the closer 





