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up the bofly, a feat easily accomplished by strctchinpr all the legs to their greatest 

 extent. This being done, the s)iider gives you the idea, as you look at him, that 

 a heavy pressure from above is pushing him down nearer and nearer the level of 

 the post. When he has reached a certain point, suddenly he detaches every one 

 of his legs, and with a sudden bound he mounts upwards. Generally, though not 

 always, he floats through the air, with his face looking upwards. As he passes 

 on, his head is generally in front. The web seems to be let out by the resistance 

 of the feet, and floats out in front of the animal. At the same time, another web 

 is ejected from some of the spinnerets, thus giving the spider either of the two 

 threads to travel on, or he may even make and select a third if he wishes. Then the 

 creature unites its eight feet together by slender filaments, thus giving buoyancy 

 and lightness to the balloon-like shape in which he finds himself. On with the 

 wind he goes, and is carried hither and thither by the various currents. But liow 

 about his stopping? It would appear that, just as he can make his own balloon 

 with which to start, so, by an act of his own will, he can stop going any farther 

 than he likes. He simply gathers in the prominent web — say the first he made at 

 all — he claws it in with his feet, and puts it in his mandibles, when he has made a 

 white roll of it. Of course there may be other causes to check his progress. 

 He may find the breeze gone ; he may be knocked against a tree, or meet 

 with some obstruction. At all events, he has succeeded in accomplishing a 

 wonderful performance, one well calculated to find him a new home in which to 

 start a new colony for his race. And whilst we look at the work of the flying 

 spider, we may well see the handiwork of Him who created all the genera and 

 Sfjscies of spiders, to prove His consummate power, wisdom, and goodness, at 

 least when men like to detect it. 



Spiders, as we should naturally expect, are to be found as fossils. Mons. 

 Brongniart discovered one in the tertiary marls of Aix-in-Provence, France. It 

 is called Atloides cresiformis, and will be found in a magnificent drawing in " I^a 

 Nature " of January 26th, 1878. Prntohicosa also is a fossil form. Dr. Rcemer 

 gives the name as Protolycosa anthracophila to a fossil spider from the coal 

 formation of Upper Silesia. The body is about an inch long. It is a very perfect 

 specimen. 



There is a creature which all of us who live in the country know — a creature 

 with very long legs indeed, when compared with the size of its body. It is known 

 as the Harvest-man spider, but there are many doubts as to whether it is a true 

 spider or not. In any case, it cannot be a great remove from it. A few points of 

 contrast may he named. The Harvest-man has a true trachseal system with 

 spiracles, not so the spider, which has a fish-like series of membranous plates. 

 The eyes of the Harvest-man are always four, a number which does not agree with 

 those of the spider, which are six or eiglit, or occasionally two, but never four. 

 Then again, the spider has two or more claws on the feet, not so the other creature, 

 which has but one. A spider has a very slender waist, connecting the abdomen 

 with the body. The Harvest-man has nothing of the kind. 



How are spiders to be preserved for the cabinet ? This is a thing much 

 more easily done in warm climates than in our own country, except in the height 



