SPIDERS: THEIR STRUCTURE AND HABITS. 67 



to converge into a point like the vertex of a cone, and so spins an 

 entire thread composed of a multitude of strands. The threads 

 so spun are not all alike. If we examine the web of a garden- 

 spider {Epeira) with a good pocket-lens, we find it composed of 

 three difterent kinds of threads. Two of them are plain and 

 differ only in size ; the third is studded with minute globules like 

 dewdrops. It is also found that, while the plain threads are only 

 slightly elastic and unadhesive, the beaded threads are adhesive 

 and possess a high degree of elasticity. 



With regard to the organs of smell and hearing nothing 

 certain is known, although the fact that spiders possess the latter 

 sense seems sufficiently established by many well-known anec- 

 dotes ; as, for example, that of Pelisson, the prisoner in the 

 Bastille, who beguiled his weary solitude by taming a spider, and 

 teaching it to come for its food at the sound of his flute. 



Such, then, with some allowance for slight deviations, or 

 adaptations, is the structure of ail spiders. We will now briefly 

 consider their economy and habits ; for, although all are endowed 

 with the same organs and formed upon one type, these are often 

 widely difterent. Some float in the air, some dive beneath the 

 water; and of those \vhich are tenants of the land, some are 

 sedentary, some vagrant. Of the sedentary ones, some wxave 

 snares more or less curious and complex, and sit therein patiently 

 waiting for clients ; while others of more refined taste, instead of 

 residing at their place of business, weave a silken gallery and con- 

 nect it with their private residence at a convenient distance off. 

 Some, again, are burrowers, and live in chambers excavated for 

 themselves beneath the ground and comfortably lined with silk. 

 Unsocial and ferocious in their habits, ugly and repulsive as they 

 are commonly considered, and the abomination of tidy house- 

 wives, the only redeeming feature about them is the devotion of 

 the female to the silken cocoon, in w^hich are deposited her hopes 

 of a family. Of conjugal affection she has none. Being larger 

 and stronger than the male, she will not seldom even kill and 

 devour her consort ; and were it not for her fecundity, and capa- 

 bility of producing several sets of prolific eggs in succession, 

 without renewing her marital intercourse, the race of spiders would 

 long ago have become extinct. 



But in spite of this cloud of obloquy, and the inveterate 

 prejudice against them, they display an intelligence, an ingenuity, 

 a patience, and a fertility of resource, that cannot fail to enlist the 

 admiration and the interest of any one who will be at the pains to 

 study them, or w^ho (to adopt the words of John Hunter) will 

 "amuse himself with spiders." 



The next point to consider is their classification. British 

 spiders are divided into two tribes : — the 8-eyed tribe, consisting 



