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cast of skin, and soon become tolerably active. Their power of making a web for 

 themselves, as well as beginning life on their own responsibility, conies naturally 

 to them, and you will find a cocoon of eggs, which had contained many spiders, 

 not only soon empty, but the inmates scattered far and wide in a very short space 

 of time, because they may form their webs by the single thread, and soon are oS 

 in very opposite directions. Before we leave the subject of eggs, it may be well 

 to record the advancement in knowledge which has been made in their study. 

 The microscope has been brought to bear on them, so that the germinal layers 

 might be examined, and also the way in which the internal organs were developed. 

 Mons. Barrois has done this, and the plan he adopted was to obtain quite fresh 

 eggs and to stain them with bi-chromate of potash and osmic acid, so that very 

 thin coloured sections might be obtained. Students had already observed the 

 formative layer possessed by the granular character of the protoplasm. Barrois 

 found there were germinal bands, or streaks pervading the length of the body. 

 Behind these were discovered ten zonites, the first four of which had the earliest 

 stages of appendages. Barrois worked well at his subject, and has given a good 

 account of his researches, for which we refer to the " Journal Anatomique Phys,," 

 Vol. xiv. (1878). 



Have you ever noticed the charnel house of the spider? We have our 

 crypts for the remains of the dead. They have their crypts for the dead they 

 have slain. You will find them— say in your stable, coach-house or outbuildings, 

 where the spiders' grounds have been very good. They are, as you would expect, 

 a little below the web, and form a queer-looking, blackish mass of debris. The 

 spiders eat what they want of their prey, and then let down by their thread, to 

 the charnel house below, all they cannot or do not care to consume. It is the most 

 heterogeneous mass imaginable, — you will, of course, find wings and empty cases 

 of all sorts of flies — em])is fly, house flj', and gnats, — also parts of bees and wasps, 

 the parts of podurae and moths, from tlie small ones to the larger ones, such as the 

 tortoiseshell butterfly. Their slaughter-houses are high up, at the level of their 

 feeding grounds, but whatever they cannot get through they send down below, so 

 that their grounds may be always ready to capture fresh food. And have you 

 ever noticed, not only the variety they take, but also how quickly they thrive 

 upon, their food ? A poor, hungry spider may be very thin now, but let him eat 

 a really solid meal, and you will see very soon afterwards the effects of his 

 gluttony. He will fatten enormously in a short time, and as it were, want the 

 buttons of his waiscoat let out. 



The water spider (Argyroneta aquatica) is a most interesting creature. 

 When searching for fresh water shells, I used to find numbers of them in Bath, 

 near Chester, but especially in Gloucester. They used to be ca])tured in the 

 Anacharis and other weeds, and, unless known to live in water, would not have 

 been distinguishable from ordinary land spiders when out of water. But, having 

 them in an aquarium, to see how they came to the top of the water, and when 

 there went head downward for an instant, so that they might collect air, which 

 was always done from the very opposite end of their body to the head, was a 

 pretty sight, but more especially as, when charged with air, they descended in the 



