SOME INTERESTING SPECIMENS 



281 



Fitting for Immortality. 



The thought of immortaHty ought to 

 be one of the utmost seriousness. One 

 must somewhere learn to live in immor- 

 tal things. Tell me honestly — the sort 

 of existence that many people are here 

 dragging out is it worth perpetuating? 

 Is it worth while to lengthen frivolous 

 and useless lives to infinite age? What 

 good do they do here? What good 

 would they do there? — Rev. Dr. Marion 

 D. Shutter, New Haven, Connecticut, 

 in a sermon on "Meaning to Immortal 

 Life." 



The latest theory of the origin of the 

 starfishes and sea urchins is that they 

 are both merely greatly modified forms 

 of the crab-lobster group. 



Interesting Specimens. 



Through the kindness of Mrs. Edwin 

 Binney of Sound Beach we have been 

 favored with an interesting specimen of 

 the well-known Hercules beetle of South 

 America. In the textbooks the ordinary 

 form, that of the male, is shown on ac- 

 count of the huge horns. The dilTerence 

 between the male Hercules beetle and the 

 female is the reverse of what occurs with 

 the ordinary mosquito. It is the female 

 mosquito that bites and stings ; the male is 

 rare. Few know the female Hercules. 



The same contributor has also favorel 

 us with a remarkably good specimen of a 

 trap-door spider and the nest. The door 

 is well shown in the photograph from 



Mrs. Binney's specimen reproduced here- 

 with. In "The Spider Book" Professor 

 Comstock tells us as follows of the struc- 

 ture and action of this door : 



"The door is provided on one side with 

 a hinge which is merely a continuation 

 of the wall of the tube into the layer of 

 silk that forms the foundation of the door. 



"The inner surface of the door presents 

 the same appearance as the silken lining 

 of the tube, being a firm layer of silk ; but 



THE FEMALE HERCULES BEETLE. 



the outer surface of the door is covered 

 with earth and made to simulate in a very 

 perfect manner the surface of the sur- 

 rounding soil, so that, when the door is 

 closed, very careful observation is neces- 

 sary to detect the presence of the nest. In 

 those cases in which the nest is built in soil 

 covered with moss, moss is planted by the 

 spider upon the door of the nest." 



These were all forwarded to Mrs. Bin- 

 ney by Mrs. M. E. Stead from Carthage, 

 North Carolina. 



TRAP-DOOR SPIDERS WITH A NESl. 



