112 LONDON INSECTS 



young Spiders leave the egg scarcely less like their 

 parents than a human baby is to a grown man or 

 woman. 



The female Spider is almost always larger and 

 stronger than her husband, and is prepared at any 

 moment to dine upon him if he comes too rashly 

 near her. 



The etiquette of the court of the Medes and Per- 

 sians of Esther's day, which made it death to the 

 Queen who approached the King without a summons, 

 unless he held out his golden sceptre, is exactly 

 reversed by the Spiders. 



The terrible lady sits in state in the middle of her 

 web, and, if willing to receive her lord, lets him know it 

 by raising the front pair of her eight legs in token of 

 acceptance. He, unless very young and foolish, know- 

 ing her temper well enough and what she is capable of 

 when in a passion, first introduces himself by cautiously 

 shaking the web at a safe distance. If rash or in- 

 experienced enough to go within reach of her jaws with- 

 out receiving the sign of acceptance, he is not likely to 

 have a chance of repeating the indiscretion. 



The insect world is enchanted land, and in it we are 

 apt to wander on as forgetful of time and space as was 

 Rip Van Winkle in the Sleepy Hollow. But one must 

 stop somewhere, and having strayed over the border 

 to the Spiders, it will be wise to rest there without 

 wandering farther. 



The subject of one of Artemus Ward's lectures as 

 published in his advertisements was ' The Babes in the 



