SPIDERS AlfD MITES. 235 



niid poison-bags, ready for their constant work. Tliey 

 have, in fact, nothing else to do : their whole lives are 

 spent in slaughtering — -svith the exception of rearing 

 fresh generations of slaughterers — and I suppose they 

 think, and are intended to think, of nothing else. 



I was one day in an omnibus, in the corner of which 

 sat a butcher. Presently a man got in, whose blue 

 gingham coat indicated the same trade. lie seated 

 himself opposite the other, and the two were soon in 

 conversation. " Do you know Jackson ? " says A. 

 " No," says B ; " where does lie slaughter ? " The 

 reply gave me a new idea ; he evidently considered 

 that " slaughtering " was the only occr.pation worthy 

 of a man, and therefore the only one worthy of man's 

 thought. Spiders are just the same. If an Epeira met 

 a Chibiona, probably the first interchange of civilities 

 would be something like — " Where do you slanghter ? " 



" No one," savs Professor TJvmer Jones, " who 

 looks at the armature of a Spider's jaws can mistake 

 the intention with which this terrible apparatus was 

 planned. ' Murder' is engraved legibly on every piece 

 that enters into its composition." But surely the Pro- 

 fessor is rather severe. I do not think this paragraph 

 was written on an autumn morning, when the flies had 

 driven him out of bed prematurely early, by incessantly 

 alighting on his nose ; nor on coming home from a 

 summer evening's walk through the marsh, when 

 clouds of singing and stinging gnats had been the onlv 

 objects of cognisance to sight, hearing, and feeling. If 

 so, he would have been ready to pronounce " killing no 

 murder," and have blessed the slaughtering Spiders as 

 pursuing a most praiseworthy and useful occupation. 

 Circumstances change oj)inions. 



