2 SPIDERS [CH. 



required careful observation to detect is now visible 

 yards away, and we realise for once something of 

 the prodigious activity constantly going on though 

 ordinarily unnoted. 



And it never entirely ceases. True hibernation, 

 if it ever occurs, is not the rule among spiders, and 

 there is no time of the year when some species may 

 not be found at work. Beat trees or bushes over an 

 old umbrella, or sweep grass and herbage with a 

 sweeping net in summer, and you will never draw a 

 blank some spiders are sure to be found. In winter 

 such measures are profitless, but if you take the 

 trouble to grub among ground vegetation, or shake 

 fallen leaves over a newspaper, or search under stones 

 or logs of wood you will have no difficulty in finding 

 spiders enough, and by no means dormant. I have 

 even seen an enthusiastic collector remove inches of 

 snow and disinter rare species from among the roots 

 of the grass beneath ! 



Spiders, then, are plentiful enough, and it is not 

 only individuals that are numerous but there are 

 vastly more kinds or species than most people dream 

 of. The Rev. 0. Pickard- Cambridge, in a book under 

 the modest title of The Spiders of Dorset in- 

 dispensable to all British collectors, quaintly observes 

 that most of his friends claim acquaintance with 

 three kinds of spiders the garden spider, the harvest 

 spider and the little red spider two of which, as it 



