276 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



inn- one of these pious insects in his hands and observing 

 what way it pointed. Mantis fausta, though not as some 

 suppose worshiped by the Hottentots, is yet greatly es- 

 teemed by them, and they regard die person upon whom 

 it alights as highly fortunate*. A similar unnatural fe- 

 rocity is exhibited by Achela campestris, of which having 

 put the sexes into a box, I found on examining them 

 that the female had begun to make her meal off her com- 

 panion. — The malign aspect of the scorpion leads us to 

 expect from it unnatural cruelty, and its manners fulfill 

 this expectation. Maupertuis put a hundred scorpions 

 together, and a general and murderous battle immedi- 

 ately began. Almost all were massacred in the space of 

 a few days without distinction of age or sex, and de- 

 voured by the survivors. He informs us also that they 

 often devour their own offspring as soon as they are 

 born b . Spiders are equally ferocious in their habits, 

 fighting sanguinary battles, which sometimes end in the 

 death of both combatants ; and the females do not yield 

 to the Mantes in their unnatural cruelty to their mates. 

 Woe be to the male spider that after an union does not 

 with all speed make his escape from the fangs of his part- 

 ner ! Nay, De Geer saw one that, in the midst of his 

 preparatory caresses, was seized by the object of his at- 

 tentions, enveloped by her in a web, and then devoured — 

 a sight which, he observes, filled him with horror and 

 indignation . 



Such are the benefits which we derive from the insects 

 that keep each other in check. Here they are the de- 



a Thunberg's Travels, ii. 66. *> De Geer, vii. 335. 



De Geer, vii. 180. 



