54 



A bee was bitten by a large spider, but lived three days. 



A grasshopper was bitten, and held in the jaws of a spider for several seconds ; but 

 it lived in apparent health for two days. 



Insects of the same kind were wounded in the same places with needles, and died in 

 about the same time as those bitten. From these experiments Mr. Blackwall was led to 

 believe that the secretion from the spider's jaw is not poisonous, but that insects die, 

 when bitten, from loss of blood and mechanical injury, 



Dufour kept a Tarantula that soon learned to take flies from his fingers without bit- 

 ing him. Spiders of veiy different species may soon be taught to take food from the 

 hand or a pair of forceps, or water from a brush, and will come to the mouth of their 

 bottle and reach after it on tip-toe. Many stories are also told of spiders coming out of 

 their holes to listen to music, and of their being taught to come out and take food at the 

 sound of an instrument. 



We may quote here the account of an observer of what a spider can eat in a day :— 

 * In order to test what a spider can do in the way of eating, we arose about daybreak in 

 the moi'ning to supply his tine web with a fly. At first, however, the spider did not come 

 from his retreat, so we peeped among the leaves, and there discovered that an earwig had 

 been caught and was now being feasted on. The spider left the earwig, rolled up the 

 fly, and at once returned to his "first course." This was at half-past five a.m. in 

 Scptembei'. At seven a.m. the earwig had been demolished, and the spider, after resting 

 a while, and probably enjoying a nap, came down for the fly, which he had finished at 

 nine a.m. A little after nine we supplied him with a daddy-long-legs, which he ate by 

 noon. At one o'clock a blowfly was greedily seized, and then immediately, with an 

 appetite apparently no worse for his previous indulgence, he commenced on the blowfly.' 



5. — Spinning Appakatus. 



That, which more than anything else, distinguishes spiders from other animals is the 

 habit of spinning webs. Some of the mites spin irregular threads on plants, or cocoons 

 for their eggs ; and many insects spin cocoons in which to pass through the change from 

 larva to adult. In the spiders, the spinning organs are much more complicated and used 

 for a greater variety of purposes, — for making egg-cocoons, silk linings to their nests, and 

 nets for catching insects. The spider's thread differs from that of insects, in being made 

 up of a great number of finer threads laid together while soft enough to unite into one. 



The external spinning-organs are little two- 

 jointed tubes on the ends of the spinnerets, 

 Fig. 7, L. Fig. 21 represents the spinnerets 

 of the same spider, still more enlarged to shew 

 the arrangement of the tubes. There is a large 

 number of little tubes on each spinneret, 

 and in certain places a few larger ones. Each 

 tube is the outlet of a sepai-ate gland. 



When the spider begins a thread it presses 

 the spinnerets against some object, and forces 

 out enough of the secretion from each tube to 

 adhere to it. Then it moves the spinnerets 

 away ; and the viscid liquid is drawn out and 

 hardens at once into threads, — one from each 

 tube. If the spinnerets are kept apart a band 

 of threads is formed; but if they are closed 

 Fig. 21. together the fine threads unite into one or more 



If a spider is allowed to attach its thread to glass, the end can be seen 

 spread out over a surface as large as the ends of the spinnerets, covered with very fine 

 threads pointing towards the middle where they unite. The spinning is commonly helped 

 by the liinder feet, which guide the thread and keep it clear of surrounding objects, and 

 even pull it from the spinnerets. This is well seen when an insect has been cauglit in a 

 web, and the spider is trying to tie it up with threads. She goes as near as she safely can, 

 and draws out a band of fine threads, which she reaches out toward the insect with one of 



larger ones. 



