1 64 THOSE OTHER ANIMALS. 



nest there like a thimble, open at the bottom, and then 

 laboriously carrying down little globules of air and releasing 

 them beneath it, until the water is expelled, and it can dwell 

 in the little silver bell it has prepared for itself. Then, 

 too, there is the spider who builds for itself a box in 

 the ground with a hinged lid as skilfully contrived as any 

 of man's inventions, and, holding this tightly down, can 

 defy the efforts of any foe likely to assail it. Not even the 

 ant shows a wider intelligence, a more perfect aptitude for 

 using the tools with which nature has provided it, and a 

 greater power of adapting itself to circumstances than does 

 the spider, and yet, while the ant and the bee are held up 

 as examples to our children, the spider is passed over as an 

 objectionable creature, of no account. 



The spider is capable of being tamed, and has before 

 now been made a pet of by prisoners, who have so do- 

 mesticated it that it would come at their call, take food 

 from their fingers, and come to treat them with absolute 

 fearlessness, if not affection. It is not to be pretended 

 that the spider possesses no bad qualities. Were it other- 

 wise, it would stand on a far loftier level with man. With 

 individuals of its own species it is exceptionally quarrelsome, 

 and will not only kill, but eat a conquered adversary. It 

 is, undoubtedly, an advanced socialist. So long as its 

 supply of the viscid fluid from which it constructs its web 

 holds out, it will build its house and defend it against all 

 comers. But when this is exhausted, it immediately adopts 

 radical principles, and upon the theory that there is no right 

 in property, proceeds at once to rob a neighbour of the 

 fruits of its labour, and to instal itself in the property from 

 which it has ejected the owner. It is a little singular that 



