Facts and Thoughts about Spiders. 1 79 



It is somewhat strange that although, where 

 other tribes of living creatures are concerned, I am 

 something of a naturalist, spiders I have always 

 observed and admired in a non-scientific spirit, and 

 this must be my excuse for mentioning the habits 

 of some spiders without giving their specific names 

 an omission always vexing to the severely-techni- 

 cal naturalist. They have ministered to the love of 

 the beautiful, the grotesque, and the marvellous in 

 me ; but I have never collected a spider, and if I 

 wished to preserve one should not know how to do 

 it. I have been " familiar with the face " of these 

 monsters so long that I have even learnt to love 

 them ; and I believe that if Emerson rightly predicts 

 that spiders are amongst the things to be expelled 

 from earth by the perfected man of the future, then 

 a great charm and element of interest will be lost 

 to nature. Though loving them, I cannot, of 

 course, feel the same degree of affection towards all 

 the members of so various a family. The fairy 

 gossamer, scarce seen, a creature of wind and sun- 

 shine; the gem-like Epei'ra in the centre of its 

 starry web ; even the terrestrial Salticus, with its 

 puma-like strategy, certainly appeal more to our 

 aesthetic feelings than does the slow heavy Mygale, 

 looking at a distance of twenty yards away, as he 

 approaches you, like a gigantic cockroach mounted 

 on stilts. The rash fury with which the female 

 wolf-spider defends her young is very admirable; 

 but the admiration she excites is mingled with other 

 feelings when we remember that the brave mother 

 proves to her consort a cruel and cannibal spouse. 

 Possibly my affection for spiders is due in a great 

 N 2 



