is most curious, this house has a door with hinges, like the operculum of
some sea shells; and herself and family, who tenant this nest, open and
shut the door, whenever they pass or repass. This history was told me, and
the nest with its operculum shewn me by the late Dr. Butt of Bath, who was
some years physician in Jamaica.

The production of these nets is indeed a part of the nature or conformation
of the animal, and their natural use is to supply the place of wings, when
she wishes to remove to another situation. But when she employs them to
entangle her prey, there are marks of evident design, for she adapts the
form of each net to its situation, and strengthens those lines, that
require it, by joining others to the middle of them, and attaching those
others to distant objects, with the same individual art, that is used by
mankind in supporting the masts and extending the sails of ships. This work
is executed with more mathematical exactness and ingenuity by the field
spiders, than by those in our houses, as their constructions are more
subjected to the injuries of dews and tempests.

Besides the ingenuity shewn by these little creatures in taking their prey,
the circumstance of their counterfeiting death, when they are put into
terror, is truly wonderful; and as soon as the object of terror is removed,
they recover and run away. Some beetles are also said to possess this piece
of hypocrisy.

The curious webs, or chords, constructed by some young caterpillars to
defend themselves from cold, or from insects of prey; and by silk-worms and
some other caterpillars, when they transmigrate into aureliæ or larvæ, have
deservedly excited the admiration of the inquisitive. But our ignorance of
their manner of life, and even of the number of their senses, totally
precludes us from understanding the means by which they acquire this