378 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



colors among tliem, yet some of them are gorgeous in tlie ex- 

 treme. A little crab spider that built a house in my garden was 

 the brightest lemon-yellow all over, and shone like a jewel amid 

 the dark green of the surrounding foliage. 



One of the English spiders has a black head and thorax, with 

 an orange-red body, on which are six black spots, each ringed 

 with white ; another has a green coat with brilliant red and yel- 

 low striped trousers, for all the world like a king's jester. One 

 dainty lady is clad in violet and white, a flaunting miss in black 

 and flame-color, and her sister in cherry and brown. 



Some of the Tliomisidce, are the exact colors of certain flowers, 

 in the centers of which they sit all day, watching for the insects 

 that come to get honey. 



Two of the spiders' worst enemies are mud wasps and ichneu- 

 mon flies. In searching recently for spiders beneath the clap- 

 boards on the south side of the house, I came across one of those 

 curious structures which the mud wasp builds. I broke it open, 

 and out tumbled a quantity of small spiders. The wasp's store- 

 house was in three compartments, and all together contained 

 forty-nine spiders, all of the same kind and about the same size, 

 in a torpid condition. The wasp had laid an Qgg in each of these 

 spiders. She does not kill the spider, but merely stupefies it, so 

 that when her egg hatches the larva may feed upon the luckless 

 spider. 



If one be a student of Nature he will perhaps have noticed a 

 spider rush away and hide in her crack without any apparent rea- 

 son. The moment before she had been enjoying the bright sun- 

 shine, and the student wonders why she ran away. The spider's 

 perceptions are so keen that she knows long before he does that 

 the sky will soon be overcast and torrents of rain descend or a 

 cold wind begin to blow. If she stayed out she might soon be 

 benumbed and unable to run into her house. 



The water spiders are covered with hairs which shed the 

 water, so that they never get wet. The little house under the 

 water in which they live and raise their families is as snug and 

 dry inside as yours and mine. 



No spiders are more interesting than the trapdoor spiders and 

 their first cousins the tarantulas. The former live in Europe and 

 California. First, they make a burrow in the ground and then 

 build the door. The California ones make their door of mud and 

 sticks. It fits into the tube as a cork does into a bottle. The 

 covers built by the European species are mere little lids, but they 

 are always built so as to resemble the surrounding surface. One 

 kind shows her sagacity by building a sort of double door, by 

 which she can escape should an enemy storm her fort. At the 

 surface is the usual door, and a few inches below this another. 



