THE SPINNING SISTERHOOD. 827 



she crushes and holds while they crowd around and take lessons 

 in what is to be their life business. 



In a pleasant home in New Jersey, already mentioned, have 

 been made some most interesting observations in spider ways by 

 Mrs. Mary Treat. Her studies were mostly among the tarantu- 

 las, whose habit is to excavate underground residences, and to 

 Mrs. Treat belongs the honor of discovering two new species. 

 First is the tiger tarantula, named from the tigerish stripes of 

 the legs, who lives in a burrow several inches deep, with a mys- 

 terious private room at the entrance, and a door skillfully de- 

 signed, and covered with rubbish to look like the ground 



about it. 



Of this family, Mrs. Treat had about thirty under observation 

 when August came, and with it the spider's worst foe the digger 

 wasp. In her book Home Studies in Nature, is an exceedingly 

 interesting account of the precautions of the wary spider and the 

 persistence of the wasp. 



Most of the spiders, wise enough to know their conqueror 

 when they saw her, hermetically closed their doors when the raid 

 began, and tried to remain behind their bolts and bars until the 

 danger was over ; but as it was two or three weeks before all the 

 wasp babies were provided for, many a venturesome hermit grew 

 hungry, opened the door a-crack, and cautiously peeped out. Alas ! 

 the caution was too late. So lively and so sharp in the hunt was 

 the enemy, that scarcely one of these imprudent ones escaped the 

 terrible fate of burial alive. Out of all Mrs. Treat's family only 

 five remained to open their doors and enjoy life after the wasp 

 war was over. This is entirely the rage of motherhood. At no 

 other time in the year does the wasp molest the spider. 



This tiger spider, in spite of her formidable name, is an excep- 

 tion to the customs of the family, in having a spouse as big as 

 herself, who constructs a home, and lives as comfortably as she. 

 In general the female spider only is a respectable member of 

 society, the male being often a vagrant and living no one knows 

 how, besides being undoubtedly the original of the " little hus- 

 band no bigger than my thumb " in the old nursery rhyme. 



The tarantula family, to which belong our New Jersey friends, 

 is the most celebrated as well as the most maligned of the race, 

 although most of the stories have been proved to be myths, and 

 their accomplishments in the building line have brought them 

 into favorable notice. America has its own specimens of the 

 tarantula, one of which, perhaps the largest yet discovered, was 

 found in South Carolina by Prof. Holmes, on his own plantation, 

 and was sent with nest and young to the Museum of Natural His- 

 tory in Central Park, New York. This truly fearful arachnid 

 had a body larger than a mouse and covered with hair, as well as 



