304 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 



witnessed, having found an earwig under a stone which I ac- 

 cidentally 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 parental 

 affection to any of the tribe seems at first view almost pre- 

 posterous. Who, indeed, could suspect that animals which 

 greedily devour their own species whenever they have oppor- 

 tunity, should be susceptible of the finer feelings ? Yet such 

 is the fact. There is a spider common under clods of earth 

 {Lycosa saccata) which may at once be distinguished by a 

 white globular silken bag about the size of a pea, in which 

 she has deposited her eggs, attached to the extremity of her 

 body. Never miser clung to his treasure with more tenacious 

 solicitude than this spider to her bag. Though apparently a 

 considerable incumbrance, she carries it with her every where. 

 If you deprive her of it, she makes the most strenuous efforts 

 for its recovery ; and no personal danger can force her to quit 

 the precious load. Are her efforts ineffectual ? A stupefying 

 melancholy seems to seize her, and, when deprived of this 

 first object of her cares, existence itself appears to have lost 

 its charms. If she succeeds in regaining her bag, or you 

 restore it to her, her actions demonstrate the excess of her 

 joy. She eagerly seizes it, and with the utmost agility runs 

 off with it to a place of security. Bonnet put this wonderful 

 attachment to an affecting and decisive test. He threw a 

 spider with her bag into the cavern of a large ant-lion, a 

 ferocious insect, which conceals itself at the bottom of a 

 conical hole constructed in the sand for the purpose of catch- 

 ing any unfortunate victim that may chance to fall in. The 

 spider endeavoured to run away, but was not sufficiently 

 active to prevent the ant-lion from seizing her bag of eggs, 

 which it attempted to pull under the sand. She made the 

 most violent efforts to defeat the aim of her invisible foe, and 

 on her part struggled with all her might. The gluten, how- 

 ever, which fastened her bag, at length gave way, and it 

 separated : but the spider instantly regained it with her jaws, 

 and redoubled her efforts to rescue the prize from her oppo- 

 nent. It was in vain : the ant-lion was the stronger of the 



