120 FIRST BOOK OF ZOOLOGY. 



A small black spider was picked up in the woods, which 

 had her body entirely covered with young spiders, which 

 were evidently newly hatched. When the mother-spider 

 was picked up, all the little spiders becoming frightened 

 jumped off, but just before jumping each one attached a tiny 

 thread to its mother's back, and as the spider was held up in 

 the air there hung below, suspended by invisible threads, 

 the whole progeny looking like little black beads. The 

 mother-spider was then thrown down among the dead leaves, 

 sticks, and pine-cones. She did not run away, however, but 

 waited till all of the young ones had found their way through 

 this tangled wilderness, safely back to their mother, and this 

 they accomplished by means of their threads, one end of which 

 they had previously attached to her back. Having waited 

 till all had been gathered in this way, she continued her 

 journey. 



111. The spider has no power of throwing or ejecting 

 its thread to distant objects, as many suppose. When threads 

 are seen stretching from one tree to another, the spider has 

 caused the thread to issue from the spinnerets, and the wind 

 has then caught it and borne it along, till finally it gets 

 entangled with some object, and in this way the spider is 

 enabled to cross from one point to another. 



These creatures are not so dangerous as many suppose, and 

 but very few authenticated cases are known of man having 

 been bitten by these animals; though the larger spiders 

 at the Soiith, and in California, as the tarantula, for exam 

 pie, can inflict a dangerous wound. 



