426 FOOD Oi INSECTS. 



almost all the modes of obtaining food which prevail 

 amongst predaceous quadrupeds — the audacious attack 

 of the lion ; the wily spring of the tiger ; the sedentary 

 cunning of the lynx ; and the amphibious dexterity of 

 the otter. 



This general view of the stratagems by which the 

 spider tribe obtain their food, imperfect as it is, will, I 

 trust, have interested you sufficiently to drive away the 

 associations of disgust with which you, like almost every 

 one else, have probably been accustomed to regard these 

 insects. Instead of considering them as repulsive com- 

 pounds of cruelty and ferocity, you will henceforward 

 see in their procedures only the ingenious contrivance of 

 patient and industrious hunters, who, while obeying the 

 great law of nature in procuring their sustenance, are 

 actively serviceable to the human race in destroying 

 noxious insects. You will allow the poet to stigmatize 

 them as 



" cunning and fierce, 



Mixture abhorred !" 



but you will see that these epithets are in reality as 

 unjustly applied to them (at least with reference to the 

 mode in which they procure their necessary subsistence) 

 as to the patient sportsman who lays snares for the birds 

 that are to serve for the dinner of his family ; and when 

 you hear 



" the fluttering wing 



And shriller sound declare extreme distress," 



you will as little think it the part of true mercy to stretch 

 forth "the helping hospitable hand" to the entrapped fly 

 as to the captive birds, The spider requires his meal as 



