Spiders. 147 



i 



of its body is a light, grayish-green, merging into white. 

 In the center of its body is a dark spot. An entomolo- 

 gist was once quite curious to know what could attract 

 butterflies to birds' droppings. He tried to pull one 

 away from it. He found that he had made the same mis- 

 take that the butterfly had. The reason why it didn't 

 fly away was that the spider had hold of it and was suck- 

 ing its blood. Some spiders not only look like withered 

 flowers lying on the ground, but have developed a per- 

 fume like jasmine. Some look like snail-shells, and one 

 smart Salticus disports herself on sunny walls and fences 

 after this fashion: She walks hurriedly, stops abruptly, 

 rapidly moves her jaws as if she were cleaning her front 

 legs after she had rubbed the dust off her wings, only she 

 hasn't any wings. Some one of the horse flies behaving 

 the same way opens conversation: " How do you do, sir? 

 Xice weather we're hav- Help! murder! watch! ' 



but Salticus has him all right. 



A fair test of the enemies any animal has, its tastiness, 

 and its skill in evading foes, is the number it has in 

 family. So, if a spider lays hundreds of eggs at once, it 

 is a sure thing that the mortality in her race is very great, 

 in spite of her tricks of make-up. But one araneid, 

 called the Synagelcs picata, lays only three eggs, and yet 

 there is no scarcity of the species. That it has so great 

 immunity is due solely to its powders as an actor. It does 

 not jump nor walk in a straight line, but runs in zig-zags 

 exactlv like an ant that is hunting. The real ant at other 



C5 



times runs straight enough, but Picata always zig-zags. 

 Other spiders always remain motionless while eating; 

 ants always twitch their abdomens. Picata twitches her 

 abdomen while she eats, beats the ground with her fore- 

 legs, and pulls her food about. More than that, she is 

 got up to look as nearly as possible like an ant. To be 



