A QUEER "SPIDER'S NEST" 



September 8th 



BOUT two summers ago a lady 

 brought me a natural history 

 specimen which was something 

 of a puzzle to her and the rest 

 of her household. 



" I have brought you a queer spi- 

 der's nest," said she. " I suppose you 

 have seen lots of them, but I never saw one like it be- 

 fore. It fell from the folds of a silk dress, which I was 

 taking from the closet, and broke, but I gathered up 

 the pieces and the spiders, which all seemed to have 

 been killed by the fall, and here are the fragments." 



I opened the handkerchief in which the nest was 

 brought, and disclosed what appeared to be an irregular 

 lump of mud. One side of it bore a perfect cast of the 

 silk gros-grain fabric a perfect mould, easily identified 

 as from silk. The broken portion disclosed a smooth 

 cavity with a few spiders, apparently dead, within it, 

 and, with the number of others to be seen in the debris, 

 showing that the cell had originally contained no less 

 than sixteen spiders, varying in size, but all of the same 



