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the body seems at first sight to be simply that it must act as an attachment for 

 the legs, and that they may grow out of it. Of course it serves other purposes as 

 well. The process of digesting food goes on in it, but even all the digestion is not 

 transacted there — it is asserted that some of the joints of the legs assist very much 

 in the work — a most extraordinary thing for us to realise ; nevertheless it is 

 positively asserted that such is the case. These sea spiders vary very much in 

 size. The greatest span in some of them is only the one-eighth of an inch, whereas 

 others are as much as eight inches. They may be found on the mud when the 

 tide is out, or crawling on the rocks. They live in all the different seas. Very 

 few people seem to have observed them much. For one thing, there is no beauty 

 about them — they are repulsive rather than otherwise. It was a source of much 

 inquiry and patient investigation to find out their life history. The very earliest 

 stage was a puzzle, as also how the eggs are produced. A little later on, though, 

 in life, evidence has been furnished on which a conclusion has been drawn, and it 

 is this— that they have been discovered in a baby state within some sea creatures, 

 such as zoophytes ; a most extraordinary thing that a crustacean should infest a 

 zoophyte. Still, closer examination revealed the fact, step by step, that the 

 young sea spider passed its early days under the skin of the other creature until it 

 ate its way through the skin, so as to begin life as a free agent on its own 

 account. I am not aware that it has ever really been found out how the spider 

 first got into the zoophyte. Possibly the peculiar mode of feeding which the 

 zoophyte has, may have been the means of drawing the eggs inside it, superadded 

 to an instinct for specially getting them there known to the parent spider when 

 laying them. If this be so, then we have a case very much resembling it, viz : 

 that of the sheep fluke. The young state of the fluke is not passed in the sheep, 

 but in one of our small freshwater shells {Limna:us tnincatulus) found in ditches 

 and moist places. It gets swallowed by sheep when grazing, and if it escapes 

 being eaten and crushed to death, it attacks the liver of sheep with consequences 

 such as their owners knew to their cost some years since. 



Mr. Stavely also refers to the instinct as to the approaching state of the 

 weather, owned by the spider. He says, " A web, spun when windy or rainy 

 weather is approaching, has its radiating or foundation threads much shorter than 

 those of a web spun before fine or calm weather. The repairing of an injured 

 web tells of the approach of fair weather, the spider being too provident to expend 

 his silk to no purpose. It is also said that if the spider be seen working at 

 alterations in the web between the hours of six and seven on a summer evening, 

 the night will be clear and calm. " 



Spiders have been noticed for their love of music. Mr. Stavely tells us how 

 one of them was so tamed that it used to come for its food when a musical 

 instrument was played for it to come. Pelisson, when confined in the Bastille, 

 was the man who tamed the spider that did this. It was a source of great 

 pleasure to him to do so, and must have made time pass all the easier to him. The 

 same author quotes other passages in proof of spiders loving music. He tells of 

 one that always made its appearance on the harmonium every evening when 

 played by a musician who was regular as to time in his practices. They have 



