822 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE SPINNING SISTERHOOD. 



By OLIVE THOENE MILLER. 



"1VTO fairy of tlie old tales ever conferred upon her favorite 

 -L- 1 magic gifts more potent than a weapon whose slightest 

 touch is death, and a thread becoming as needed a ladder to 

 scale a wall, a balloon to navigate the air, a net to supply food, 

 and a tent or a nursery for its possessor. Yet these are the com- 

 mon endowments of a whole family of fellow-creatures whom we 

 we despise. 



No being that lives is more universally detested, more remorse- 

 lessly destroyed, than one who exists only to serve us, whose whole 

 life is undying war upon our most powerful enemies. Well in- 

 deed is it for us that she possesses the two magical gifts, and that, 

 do our worst in our blind and stupid way, we can not exterminate 

 the race the industrious, the patient, the silent "daughter of 

 Arachne" the spider. Mysterious and solitary being, dumb, 

 probably deaf, of strong though not varied emotions, with ene- 

 mies countless as the leaves of the forest, who shall penetrate the 

 secret of her life ? 



Is it not enough that every bird that flies, ruthlessly robs her 

 nursery, devours her babies, and even snatches her own soft body 

 from the very sanctum of home ; that gauzy flies steal their greedy 

 young into her nursery to fatten upon her infants ; that to monk- 

 eys, squirrels, and lizards her plump body is a sweet morsel they 

 never resist ; that frogs and toads snap her up without ceremony ; 

 that centipeds seize her in resistless grasp ; that wasps paralyze 

 and bury her alive ? Are not these enough, without man joining 

 the hosts of exterminators ? Man, too in whose service she lives ! 



Consider for a moment her usefulness. Count, if you can, the 

 thousands of flies and mosquitoes eaten by one common house or 

 garden spider in a summer. Then remember her harmlessness. 

 Other servants we must pay : birds eat our cut-worms, our cater- 

 pillars, and our potato-beetles, but we have to pay a tax small, 

 it is true in fruits, in berries, in green peas, in corn ; owls and 

 hawks, while they destroy moles and mice, indulge now and then 

 in young chickens. But the daughter of Arachne asks no reward, 

 neither fruit nor vegetable suffers from her touch, no humming 

 or buzzing attends her movements. Steadily, faithfully she goes 

 on her way doing her appointed work ; and we, so wise, so far 

 above her in the scale of being, we murder her ! 



Not content with that, we call her " horrid," while in truth she 

 is a beauty, if we only had eyes to see. The largest of the family, 

 the Mijcjales, clothed in furs, and always spoken of as " monsters," 



