. Anecdotes of remarkable insects : selected from natural history, and interspersed with poetry. displayd ! Who, if we may believe the fable, Wert once a lovely blooming maid ! ^12 SPIDERS. Insidious, restless, watchful spider, Fear no officious damsels broom. Extend thy artful fabric wider, And spread thy banners round my room. Swept from the rich mans costly ceiling,Thourt welcome to my homely roof, Here mayst thou find a peaceful undisturbd attend thy woof. While I thy wondrous fabric stare at,And think on hapless poets fate; Like thee confind to lonely garret. And rudely banis
. Anecdotes of remarkable insects : selected from natural history, and interspersed with poetry. displayd ! Who, if we may believe the fable, Wert once a lovely blooming maid ! ^12 SPIDERS. Insidious, restless, watchful spider, Fear no officious damsels broom. Extend thy artful fabric wider, And spread thy banners round my room. Swept from the rich mans costly ceiling,Thourt welcome to my homely roof, Here mayst thou find a peaceful undisturbd attend thy woof. While I thy wondrous fabric stare at,And think on hapless poets fate; Like thee confind to lonely garret. And rudely banishd rooms of state. And as from out thy torturd body Thou drawSt thy slender string with does he labour, like a noddy. To spin materials from his brain: He, for some fluttering tawdry creature. That spreads her chaims before his eye; And thats a conquest little better Than thine, oer captive butterfly. Thus far tis plain we bc^h agree, Perhaps our deatks may better show it—*Tis ten to one but penury Ends both the Spider and the Poet. Shenstone. THE TARANTULA. Tarantula.—Aran e The TarantiJa has the breast and bellyof an ash colour ; the legs are likewise ashcoloured, with blackish rings on the underpart: two of its eyes are larger than theothers, they are red and placed in the front;four other eyes are placed in a transversedirection towards the mouth. It is a nativeof Italy, Cyprus, Barbary, and the EastIndies. It lives in bare fields, where thelands are fallow, but not very hard. Its S14 THE TARANTULA. dwelling is about four inches deep, and halfan inch wide; at the bottom it is curved,and there the insect sits in wet weather, andcuts its way out, if water gains upon it. Itweaves a net at the mouth of the Spiders do not live quite a year. InJuly they shed their skin. They lay aboutseven hundred and thirty eggs, which arehatched in the spring : but the parent doesnot live to see her progeny, as she expiresearly in the winter. The ichneumon fly istheir
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