The love of kind-preservation is inherent in all animals; it ranks next in psychical strength to self-preservation, and, in some instances, even surpasses this so-called "first law of nature." For it very frequently happens that the mother, both brute and human (and I use the word _brute_ as the antithesis of the word _human_, and mean it to embrace all creatures other than man), will lay down her life in defence of her young, seemingly, utterly forgetting this "first law" in her aim to save her offspring from destruction. Thus the spider whose egg-bag I had taken away ran here and there and everywhere in search of it, seemingly totally oblivious of my presence. When I extended it to her, clasped between the blades of a small forceps, she seized it with her mandibles and vainly tried to take it away. When she discovered that this was impossible, she turned with fury on the forceps' blades and bit and tore at them in a perfect frenzy of despairing agony. I removed two of her front legs, yet, even when thus maimed and suffering, she never for an instant forgot her beloved bag in whose silken meshes so many of her young lay hidden. She continued her efforts to drag the bag away, and was so persistent and showed such high courage, that my calloused sensibilities, hardened by much biological research, were touched, and I gave her her treasure, which she bore away in triumph.[72] [72] Vide Chap. IV., _The Emotions_, p. 105. I, on one occasion, severed an earwig at the injunction of the thorax and abdomen; the upper portion (the head and thorax) gathered together its brood of young and safely conducted them into a haven of safety beneath the bark of a tree. In crustaceans we probably find the first unmistakable evidences of maternal love. The female crayfish, with the under surface of her tail covered with impregnated eggs or newly hatched young, will fight to the death in their behalf. I have, time and again, reared crayfish, and have succeeded in taming them to such a degree that they would take food from my fingers; whenever the females of these crustaceans became mothers, however, they became timid and suspicious and would seek out the darkest spots in the tanks where they were kept. If I attempted to handle them they would nip me with their sharp mandibles at the first opportunity that offered; they would allow no interference with their precious offspring if they could possibly prevent it. This is true of the lobster also. This giant crustacean, with her enormous forceps-like claws, generally wages a winning fight with the would-be ravishers of her young.