276 



ANIMAL SKETCHES. 



CHAP. 



Wherefore when you are inclined to give way to self- 

 gratification at the expense of others, pull yourself 

 together and say to yourself, Now don't be a spider. 



I shall take it for granted that you already know some- 

 thing about spiders ; that they differ from insects in 

 having eight legs instead of six ; that they are provided 

 with cruel poisonous jaws ; that they spin their silken fibre 

 from the hinder end of the body and not from the mouth 

 like a silkworm ; and that many of them, like Epeira, the 

 common garden spider, form webs for the entrapment of 

 unwary insects. Not all spiders form webs like this ; 

 some of them hunt and stalk their prey. Often and often 

 have I watched the operations of one of these little hunt- 

 ing spiders. He looked for all the world like a small fly 

 and even rubbed his forelegs over his head after the 

 insect's innocent fashion. Thus partially disguised he 

 would steal up near his unsuspecting victim, and then 

 with a sudden spring would seize him and pierce him with 

 his poisoned jaws. 



Of the web I think I must say a word or two more 

 because misleading and erroneous statements are often 

 made concerning it. The silk which is wonderfully elastic 

 and strong, is produced by a number of spinning glands in 

 the swollen hinder end of the body. In the Epeira there 

 are said to be five distinct kinds of glands. And in these 

 a clear viscid fluid is secreted, which, when it is drawn out 

 into the air, in most cases hardens into a silken thread 

 The fluid produced by one of the glands, however, does 

 not harden in this way, but remains viscid and sticky ; 

 and this is shed by the spinner on the spiral thread which 

 runs round and round from the centre to the circumference 

 of the web. 



To distribute the threads there is beneath the spider's 

 abdomen, an apparatus of six little movable organs like 



