done by running off, she instantly turned and seized the bag between her jaws, and struggled to regain her lost treasure; the enormous strength of the antlion was too great for her powers, even though stimulated by the full force of maternal instinct, and the eggs were consequently drawn under the sand; still, however, she retained her hold, and rather than relinquish that, without which life was a burden, she suffered herself to be buried alive with her progeny. It was now that Bonnet compassionated her fate and rescued her from the jaws of death, but he could not restore to her the bag of eggs so tenaciously held by the ant-lion. She lingered at the spot where the eggs were buried, regardless alike of her own danger, and of the efforts of Bonnet to remove her from her enemy, by pushing her off with a piece of twig.

Her cares are not confined to the egg only, but when the young themselves are evolved, she allows them to cling to her body, until such time as they shall become strong enough to hunt for themselves; and thus laden, she may be seen in her ordinary haunts. Much has been said of the venom of spiders, but De Geer and others, who have made the experiment on themselves, have never found any ill effects arising from the trial.

Spiders have been domesticated; a Parisian manufacturer kept and fed eight hundred of these creatures, in one apartment; they became so tame, that whenever he came in with his dish of flies, they descended to take their food. This story, related in the French Dictionary of Natural History, if true, proves, that even these solitary and cruel creatures may in some

degree be tamed, and lose their natural propensities to attack and eat each other.

Another instance is mentioned by Latreille, in which a spider appears to have acquired tame habits. A Frenchman of the name of Pelisson, being imprisoned in the Bastile, was deprived of pen, ink, and paper, and reduced to the society of an ignorant and sullen Basque, whose only occupation was playing on the musette. A spider made its web at the edge of the window which lighted the prison; and to relieve the dreadful ennui of his situation, Pelisson undertook to tame it, by placing flies in its way, while the Basque played upon his instrument. By degrees the spider became accustomed to the sound, and ran from its hole to receive its prey. Thus by being always summoned by the same sound, and having its food placed gradually at a farther distance from the web, the insect in a few months became so well disciplined, that at the first signal, it would leave its hiding place, and come and take its flies at the bottom of the chamber, under Pelisson's eyes.

CHAPTER XV.

CATERPILLARS.

Their singular habits-the Grub of the Domestic Moth fabricates a mantle-habits of the Field Moth-Caddis-worm.

THE habits of some insects during their larva or caterpillar state are so singular, and manifest so much ingenuity and design, that a short account of them cannot fail to prove interesting.

Few insects appear more deserving of admiration than those which possess the art of fabricating garments for their own use. Like the human race, they come into the world naked; and their birth is scarcely completed, when they begin the task of clothing themselves. The reader will easily perceive that the insects here alluded to are the little moths which, in warm weather, are seen to issue from our closets, where furniture, cloth, ermine, feathers, all fall a sacrifice to the depredations, not indeed of the moth itself, but of the worm which is evolved from the egg of the moth. All that the moth does is to deposit its eggs on these different articles; but it is the grub that proceeds from these eggs that effects all the mischief. The grubs of the different sorts of domestic moths do not make their garments after the same fashion, nor of the same materials. It is probable that the different species of moths vary as much in this respect as the inhabitants of different countries: the shape of their

garment is peculiarly convenient; it is a small cylindrical tube open at both ends, and exactly fitted to the body of the grub; the stuff used for this purpose is fabricated by the moth. The tissue is a mixture of hair and silk; but as this would not be sufficiently soft for the tender body of the worm, it is lined internally with pure silk. Articles manufactured of hair, fur, or wool, supply the caterpillar of the moth with the raw material which it wants for the fabrication of its stuff; they select those hairs which appear most suitable to their purpose; cut them with their teeth, and with admirable skill incorporate them with their silky tissue.

They never change their garment; that which they put on in infancy continues to shelter them during the whole of their lives. But they are able both to lengthen and widen their vesture whenever they think proper. To lengthen it is a very simple process: it only requires that a few new threads, or new hairs, should be added to each end of their garment; but to widen it is a matter of more difficulty: to effect this object, the insect adopts the same steps as a human mechanic would pursue under similar circumstances. It splits its garment on the two opposite sides, and in the intervals thus formed, skilfully inserts two pieces of stuff of the necessary width; it does not at once split its coat from one end to the other: this would cause the parts to separate too widely, as well as expose the caterpillar in a state of nakedness to the action of the open air: to avoid these inconveniences, it splits each side only half the length of the whole garment; it then proceeds to the other end, which it enlarges in a similar manner. Thus, instead of two whole length openings,

This figure shews the garment split in half the length.

filled up by two whole length pieces, four half length openings and pieces are used. A reasonable agent could not follow a more ingenious or more efficient plan. A coat made in this fashion is not the work of a day nor yet of a month; different caterpillars labour with different degrees of diligence; and even the same worm, when deprived of its clothing in an advanced stage of its existence, will finish in one week what it had previously taken it perhaps months to

execute.

The garment of this caterpillar is always of the same colour as the stuff from which its raw material has been taken; if a worm, enveloped in a blue coat, happen to remove to a piece of red cloth, the additions. which may be made to the ends of the tube, or the pieces inserted in the sides to widen it, will be of a red colour; if it happen to travel over cloth of different colours, its garment will exhibit a corresponding variety of hues.

These caterpillars live upon the same materials which compose their covering. It is singular that these substances should be digested by them; and still more singular that their colour should be so little affected by this digestive process; for the excrements of these caterpillars are invariably found to be of the same colour (though lighter) as the substances which they may have eaten.

These caterpillars make short excursions: when the part in which they first settled has been shaven.