246 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



library. As appearances are often deceptive, it would not be safe to 

 predicate a literary taste of my bookish visitor, but the creature's meas- 

 ured gait and pedal sprawl over my written page did suggest the airs 

 of a stilted critic. And yet, to use a trade-phrase, with all its seeming 

 bigness, phalangium did not " size up much." Its egg-shaped body 

 was exactly a quarter of an inch in length, and an eighth wide at its 

 thickest part. Of its eight legs, each one in the shortest pair measured 

 an inch and five eighths, and in the longest pair the measurement ex- 

 ceeded three inches, a considerable spread for so little timber. There 

 was quite a good understanding between us. It would allow me to 

 touch the long, thread-like legs with my pen, and even to lift one up 

 above the others, and the queer thing would keep the limb raised for 

 several minutes, precisely as I would leave it, as if it were hypnotized. 



The phalangium is a member of a tribe of the spiders known as the 

 Pedipalpi, because the palps or feelers end, like the feet of many 

 insects, in a claw, sometimes a pair, thus making a forceps. After my 

 tickling his perambulators, Daddy seemed to have got his ideas started, 

 for, having adjusted his octapodal highness upon my manuscript in 

 most admirable equipoise, he began the delectable exercise of scratch- 

 ing his legs. I am sure that the operation was enjoyable to him, while 

 to me the sight was very interesting. If Captain Cuttle should find 

 it necessary to try the flexibility of a whip-stock, it is supposable that 

 he would take the handle in his left hand, and with a pressing motion 

 pass the whip for its entire length through the iron hook which served 

 for his right hand. The whip would thus take on a loop-like curve, 

 and would straighten itself out with somewhat of a snap. Just in 

 this way did my spider scratch his slender legs for one at a time were 

 these long elastic limbs passed through the hook of the palp, when the 

 limb would be bent like a loop or bow in the process, and as it left the 

 hook or claw by its elasticity would do so with an almost whip-like 

 snap. 



The higher one ascends the animal scale in such observations, the 

 more pronounced is found this habit of scratching the skin-surface of 

 the body. Individually, Maud S. and Coomassie may be "too high- 

 toned " for such a practice. But these creatures are coddled out of 

 conscience by the groom, who has the comb and the brush almost 

 always on their pelts ; hence, if these "high-bloods" come not to the 

 scratch, it is because the scratch comes to them. Cushie and Dray, 

 put upon their own resources, enjoy hugely a good rubbing self -ad- 

 ministered against a tree or post. 



Happening one day in my lady's boudoir, I picked from the cabinet 

 what I took for a pretty bit of bric-a-brac. It was an ebony stem, 

 about fourteen inches long, not thicker than one's finger, and quite 

 daintily turned. At one end was attached a pretty little hand deftly 

 wrought in ivory. It could not be called a fist, for I noticed that the 

 fingers were only half closed. The nails were well developed, and 



