ALEXANDER] WHY SPIDERS ARE INTERESTING 327 



the child mind that is absorbed at home where a careless statement 

 often instills in the developing child a deep and lasting prejudice. 



Not all the tales told of spiders, however, speak of e\'il, many 

 are wholesome and extremely interesting : the story told of Robert 

 Bruce in 1305, and its counterpart related of Mahomet when he 

 fled from Mecca are of this nature and well known; less familiar 

 is the like tale told of King Frederick II, who was saved by a spider 

 f alHng in his cup of chocolate at the palace Sans Sonci in Potsdam : 

 the drink had been poisoned by the cook, but before the monarch 

 drank the spider fell from the ceiling into the cup, whereupon 

 the king called for fresh chocolate and was preserved by so sHght 

 an accident. (The cook believing his treachery had been fotmd out 

 shot himself.) It is said that a spider beautifully painted now 

 adorns the chamber in Sans Sonci, where this memorable event 

 transpired. 



The webs of spiders too, have played an important part in art, 

 symbolically. The casement and open door was shown bedecked 

 by the untom web, and at sight of it we felt instinctively the aim 

 of the artist: the symbol stood for the deserted house and there 

 was no mistaking it. 



Again the symbol is wrought, this time in the active hands of 

 a fair woman, and the genius of a Veronese makes it read "indtis- 

 try" and here as before we find it no less significant. 



But here I must leave the spider as a subject of bygone specula- 

 tion to say something of the habits of this little animal as some of 

 oiu" greatest men and women know it today. 



The "Spider Book" by Prof. John Henry Comstock, should be 

 owned by ever^' thinking person who in his or her nature owns a 

 kinship to the great out of doors. Its pages are not for the child, 

 but for the grown up children of healthy mind, and broad s\Tn- 

 pathies. 



This book will expel the dread, awaken our keener sensibilities 

 and cause us to realize that in the spider we are dealing with a 

 creatvu-e fearfully and wonderfully made, endowed with strange 

 and amazing peculiarities and instinct with cleverness equal to 

 that of any li\'ing thing. 



Let us mention but the web building habits of some of the highly 

 developed Araneida, the web of the orb-weaver, the nest of Argiope 

 or the trap door dwelHngs of the Tarantulas to prove that we are 

 dealing with architects of no mean ability. I intend to say some- 



