202 UNCOMMON SPIDER. 



and every one has observed the fear shewn by 

 young chickens and ducks at the sight of a hawk 

 hovering in the air. Nor is this expression of 

 alarm confined to birds and beasts. I have heard 

 it uttered by bees, moths, and some other insects. 

 The wood-louse shews its instinctive fears by rol- 

 ling itself up into a ball ; and other insects will 

 put on the semblance of death when afraid ; I 

 have seen a spider do this. Indeed, some insects 

 not only shew their fear, but take extraordinary 

 means of self-preservation. 



I now refer to a Spider I recently discovered, 

 and whose proceedings have not, as far as I am 

 aware, been noticed by naturalists. At night 

 I have observed this insect crawling over the 

 ceiling of a room in search of flies, which it 

 eats as it catches them, and appears, unlike 

 most spiders, to have no place of retreat. In 

 the day-time, this spider appears motionless at 

 some spot on the ceiling, but it remains in the 

 centre of three fine threads which it has thrown 

 out, one end of each of which has its termination 

 at the place where the spider is resting. On 

 touching one of these threads ever so slightly, the 

 spider instantly disappears. I at first thought 

 that it had suddenly let itself fall to the ground, 

 but after a short time, I saw it in its original po- 

 sition. On disturbing it a second time, I was 

 enabled to ascertain that by means of its two fore- 



