Spiders. 137 



squeezes air in and out through plates of tissue set like 

 the leaves of a book. 



There are very many kinds of spiders besides those 

 that annoy the housewife with their webs stuck up in the 

 corners of the rooms and in the \vindows, when she has 

 been too busy with the sewing to look after the house 

 much; but every kind is an appetite on eight legs, and 

 thoroughly convinced that nobody can be strong and 

 hearty that lives on vegetables. They all spin more or 

 le-ss, whence their name, which is a contraction of spinder 

 or spinner. Also, they bite, and if you listen to all the 

 fool stories that are told, when a spider bites you, you 

 will save time by sending for the lawyer to make your 

 will, and telegraph for the boys to come home at once 

 if they want to see you alive. But I will tell you, as be- 

 tween educated people that know a thing or two and do 

 not get scared over every little trifle, that a spider's bite 

 is no worse than a mosquito's not so bad, in fact. A 

 big spider can kill a small bird with its poison, but it only 

 makes a man's arm swell up and hurt for a day or less, 

 and not hurt very much at that. That is, the spiders 

 around these parts. In New Zealand they have a little 

 spider that kills you dead if it bites you. How lucky for 

 us the dangerous beasts all live in foreign parts! Bert- 

 kau could not feel the ordinary domestic spider on the 

 thick skin of his hand, and only between the fingers could 

 the spider make a puncture like that of a dull pin. The 

 worst result was that it itched a little. Blackwall had 

 them draw blood, but that was all. Though one spider 

 bit another so hard that its liver ran out, it lived for more 

 than a year afterward. As for these terrible tarantulas, 

 either the stories told about victims having to dance till 

 they fell down in exhaustion in order to escape death and 

 madness were tremendous whoppers, or tarantulas don't 



