AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 359 



tor had willed that the insect world should combine with- 

 in itself examples of all that is most remarkable in every 

 other department of nature, — still more nearly approaches 

 the habits of the hen in her care of her family. She 

 absolutely sits upon her eggs as if to hatch them — a fact 

 which Frisch appears first to have noticed — and guards 

 them with the greatest care. De Geer, having found an 

 earwig thus occupied, removed her into a box where was 

 some earth, and scattered the eggs in all directions. She 

 soon, however, collected them one by one with her jaws 

 into a heap, and assiduously sat upon them as before. 

 The young ones, which resemble the parent except in 

 wanting elytra and wings, and, strange to say, are as soon 

 as born larger than the eggs which contained them, im- 

 mediately upon being hatched creep like a brood of 

 chickens under the belly of the mother, who very quietly 

 suffers them to push between her feet, and will often, as 

 De Geer found, sit over them in this posture for some 

 hours 3 . This remarkable fact I have myself witnessed, 

 having found an earwig under a stone which I accident- 

 ally turned over, sitting upon a cluster of young ones just 

 as this celebrated naturalist has described. 



We are so accustomed to associate the ideas of cruelty 

 and ferocity with the name of spider, that to attribute pa- 

 rental affection to any of the tribe seems at first view al- 

 most preposterous. Who indeed could suspect that ani- 

 mals which greedily devour their own species whenever 

 they have opportunity, should be susceptible of the 

 finer feelings ? Yet such is the fact. There is a spider 

 common under clods of earth (Aranea saccatq, L.) which 

 * De Geer, iii. 548. 



