are a moth, to which nature has given the form, the colour, the disposition, the perfect figure, of three or four dried leaves with their shades and their fibres. Under its first form, it is a pretty large caterpillar, of a dark colour-grey and brown, with brown hairs and a fleshy brown horn at the extremity of its body. Here is a caterpillar which seems to have set out on its travels; in fact, it is not at home here. I recognise it now; it is striped with pale blue and yellow, spotted with black. It comes from the kitchen-garden yonder, behind that screen of poplars; for there is nothing here that suits it: it lives upon the leaves of the cabbage tribe, which it shares with other green caterpillars which are metamorphosed into those white butterflies so common in our gardens and fields. I do not know what sort of a butterfly this becomes. I will catch it and imprison it to witness its metamorphosis.* But what is going on now? A little fly of a reddish brown colour, whose body seems to be attached to its corselet by a slender thread only, has pounced upon the caterpillar, which appears to be not at all inconvenienced by it, but keeps on its way. It is most likely breakfast-time, and it is in search of a cabbage. But what is the fly about? What does it want? Is it a fly of prey ? Does the tiny insect mean, like an eagle, to carry off the caterpillar as a meal for itself and its young? The caterpillar weighs twenty times as much as it does that is impossible. But the fly is armed with a sting twice as long as its whole body, and as fine as a hair. It is an enemy. It is going to kill the caterpillar with that formidable weapon, and, without doubt, eat it. It raises its sting, and this slender hair separates into three parts in its whole length; two are hollow, and are the halves of a sheath for the third, which is a sharp-toothed wimble. It darts it into the body of the caterpillar, which appears to perceive or know nothing of the matter. It soon withdraws its sword, and returns it to the scabbard, flies off, and disappears. The caterpillar did not stop, nor does it stop. It is going to find its cloth laid and an excellent breakfast ready. In a few days it will descend into the earth to go through its metamorphosis; but if I do not shut it up in order to ascertain what sort of a butterfly it becomes, my expectations will be disappointed. The fly has stung it, and what naturalists call the ichneumon has only laid an egg in its body. That sword, thin as the third part of a hair, is hollow, and has deposited an egg in an interior part of the cater *It is transformed into one of those white butterflies which are so common in this country, as well as in France. pillar, where this operation does it no harm. From this egg issues a worm, which consumes the caterpillar very slowly, The latter feels ill at ease, loses its appetite, and makes its cocoon; its troublesome guest never ceases to devour it till the former is itself metamorphosed, and becomes a fly similar to that which we saw lay the egg. It pierces the cocoon of the caterpillar, and flies away. By and by it seeks for a caterpillar, in which it in turn may deposit its eggs. A. KARR. THE SPIDER. Or all the solitary insects I have ever remarked, the spider is the most sagacious; and its actions, to me, seem almost to exceed belief. This insect is formed by nature for a state of war, not only upon other insects, but upon each other. For this state, nature seems perfectly well to have formed it. Its head and breast are covered with a strong natural coat of mail, which is impenetrable to the attempts of every other insect, and its belly is enveloped in a soft pliant skin, which eludes the sting even of a wasp. Its legs are terminated by strong claws, not unlike those of a lobster; and their vast length, like spears, serves to keep every assailant at a distance. Not worse furnished for observation than for an attack or defence, it has several eyes, large, transparent, and covered with a horny substance, which, however, does not impede its vision. Besides this, it is furnished with a forceps above the mouth which serves to kill or secure the prey already caught in its claws or its net. Such are the implements of war with which the body is imme diately furnished; but its net to entangle the enemy seems what it chiefly trusts to, and what it takes most pains to render as complete as possible. Nature has furnished the body of this little creature with a glutinous liquid, which, proceeding from the rear it spins into a thread, coarser or finer as it chooses to contract or dilate its sphincter.* In order to fix its threads when it begins to weave, it emits a small drop of its liquid against the wall, which, hardening by degrees, serves to hold the thread very firmly. Then receding from the first point, as it recedes, the thread lengthens; and when the spider has come to the place * Sphincter, circular muscles of an orifice. where the other end of the thread should be fixed, gathering up with its claws the thread, which would otherwise be too slack, it is stretched tightly, and fixed to the wall as before. In this manner it spins and fixes several threads parallel to each other, which, so to speak, serve as the warp to the intended web. To form the woof, it spins in the same manner its thread, transversely fixing one end to the first thread that was spun, and which is always the strongest of the whole web, and the other to the wall. All these threads, being newly spun, are glutinous, and therefore stick to each other whenever they happen to touch; and in those parts of the web most exposed to be torn, our natural artist strengthens them by doubling the threads sometimes six-fold. About four years ago I noticed a large spider in one corner of my room, making its web, and though the maid frequently levelled her fatal broom against the labours of the little animal, I had the good fortune then to prevent its destruction, and I may say it more than paid me by the entertainment it afforded. In three days the web was with incredible diligence completed; nor could I avoid thinking that the insect seemed to exult in its new abode. It frequently traversed it round, and examined the strength of every part of it, retired into its hole, and came out very frequently. The first enemy, however, it had to encounter was another and much larger spider, which, having no web of its own, and having probably exhausted all its stock in former labours of this kind, came to invade the property of its neighbour. Soon, then, a terrible encounter ensued, in which the invader seemed to have the victory, and the laborious spider was obliged to take refuge in its hole. Upon this I perceived the victor using every art to draw the enemy from his stronghold. He seemed to go off, but quickly returned, and when he found all arts vain, began to demolish the new web without mercy. This brought on another battle, and, contrary to my expectations, the laborious spider became conqueror, and fairly killed his antagonist. Now, then, in peaceable possession of what was justly its own, it waited three days with the utmost patience, repairing the breaches of its web, and taking no sustenance that I could perceive. At last, however, a large blue fly fell into the snare, and struggled hard to get loose. The spider gave it leave to entangle itself as much as possible, but it seemed to be too strong for the cobweb. I must own I was greatly surprised when I saw the spider immediately sally out, and in less than a minute weave a new net round its captive, by which the motion of its wings was stopped, and when it was fairly hampered in this manner, it was seized and dragged into the hole. In this manner my spider lived, in a precarious state, and nature seemed to have fitted it for such a life; for upon a single fly it subsisted for more than a week. I once put a wasp into the nest, but when the spider came out in order to seize it as usual, it, upon perceiving what kind of an enemy it had to deal with, instantly broke all the bands that held it fast, and contributed all that lay in its power to disengage so formidable an antagonist. When the wasp was at liberty, I expected the spider would have set about repairing the breaches that were made in its net; but those, it seems, were irreparable, wherefore the cobweb was now entirely forsaken, and a new one begun, which was completed in the usual time. I had now a mind to try how many cobwebs a single spider could furnish; wherefore I destroyed this, and the insect set about another. When I destroyed the other also, the whole stock seemed entirely exhausted, and it could spin no more. . . . The arts it made use of to support itself, now deprived of its great means of subsistence, were indeed surprising. I have seen it roll up its legs like a ball, and lie motionless for hours together, but cautiously watching all the time; when a fly happened to approach sufficiently near, it would dart out all at once, and often seize its prey. Of this life, however, it soon began to grow weary, and resolved to invade the possession of some other spider, since it could not make a web of its own. It formed an attack upon a neighbouring fortification with great vigour, and at first was as vigorously repulsed. Not daunted, however, with one defeat, it continued to lay siege to another's web for three days, and at length, having killed the occupier, actually took possession. When smaller flies happen to fall into the snare, the spider does not sally out at once, but very patiently waits till sure of them; for on approaching, the terror of its appearance might give the captive strength sufficient to get loose; the manner then is to wait patiently till, by ineffectual and impotent struggles, the captive has wasted all its strength, and then it becomes a certain and easy conquest. The insect I am now describing lived three years; every year it changed its skin, and got a new set of legs. I have sometimes plucked off a leg, which grew again in two or three days. At first it dreaded my approach to its web; but at last it became so familiar as to take a fly out of my hand, and upon my touching any part of the web, would immediately leave its hole, prepared either for a defence or an attack. GOLDSMITH. One last look at the white-walled town, And the little grey church on the windy shore. Then come down. She will not come, though you call all day. Come away, come away. Children dear, was it yesterday We heard the sweet bells over the bay? Through the surf and through the swell, |
