104 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



upon its eggs,* because De Geer found a mother of 

 this species surrounded with a brood of thirty or forty 

 young ones following her as chickens follow a hen. 

 She never leaves her family; but as soon as she 

 moves, all the young ones closely follow, and assem- 

 ble around her in a cluster wherever she makes a 

 halt. De Geer once cut a branch of birch, upon 

 which a family of these bugs had assembled, and the 

 mother showed every symptom of fear and distress. 

 Had she not had a family to protect, she would have 

 taken immediate flight; but instead of this, she kept 

 beating her wings rapidly and incessantly, and never 

 stirred from her young. But even all this, atfec- 

 tionately maternal as it mu^t be considered, is far 

 from authorizing the conclusion that she sits upon 

 her eggs ; though it is certain she must remain near 

 them till they are hatched, unless she belong to those 

 mentioned by Busch as ovo-viviparous.^ 



One of the most common instances of something 

 similar to birds hatching their eggs occurs in several 

 species of spiders, which may be seen sitting near 

 or upon the silken bag in which they have inclosed 

 their eggs. Many of these mothers, however, die 

 before their young are hatched, — all of them, per- 

 haps, when the eggs are laid late in autumn. During 

 the winter of 1829-30, we watched a considerable 

 number of the geometric spiders {Epeira) brooding 

 over their eggs for several weeks; but though the 

 weather before Christmas was little more than an 

 average degree of coldness, every one of them died, 

 some living a longer time, and others a shorter. J But 

 this is not the case with a very common wandering 

 spider called by Dr Lister the wolf {Lxjcosu saccala, 

 Latr.), and first observed, we believe, by the cele- 

 brated Harvey. § ' In order,' says Swammerdam, ' to 



* Intro, i, 3.5S, and iii, 101. 



t Schneider, Europaische Sclimetterlinge i, 206. i. J. R, 



§ Harvey, De Cienerntiono. 



