ALEXANDER] WHY SPIDERS ARE INTERESTING 329 



house a hinged door, that closes snug and perfect and on the under 

 side of his door he makes two holes to receive the claws of the 

 chelicerae by which he may hold it down in case some obnoxious 

 intruder may seek to distvirb his tranquihty. Sometimes he does 

 even more than this, wise and precautious fellow that he is; jutting 

 off from his main chamber he digs an ante-room, also supplied with 

 a door, into which he can retire with speed and security, in case 

 his habitation is taken by storm or stealth. 



This is a crafty spider we must acknowledge nor is his craftiness 

 one whit less than his adroitness. These large spiders hunt by 

 night and dtiring the day remain in peaceftd repose, securely hid 

 from any prying eye and Uttle caring for the sun and his 

 gracious beam. 



Lea\'ing the giants of the spider kind let us turn to the urchins 

 of the order and examine a trait of precosity that the yoimg of 

 many species show, one that is extraordinary in the extreme. 

 I refer to the ballooning habits of infant spiders that are often 

 spoken of as aeronautic spiders. In all the natural world there is 

 nothing more wonderful than this curious trait, so skillfully 

 put to use, and often so signally successful. One may most 

 naturally inqviire why, how do spiders fly ? The method is simple, 

 but the instinct to put in practice, so amazingly developed in these 

 creatures is difficult to account for unless indeed they have adopted 

 the ballooning habit to ensiu-e a wider dispersion of the species — as 

 have the dandeUons and thistles in providing their seed offspring 

 with pappus air craft. How and when did this very terrestrial 

 fellow solve the great problem of aerostation? We cannot answer 

 this and must be satisfied wdth describing the flying spiders' way 

 of riding the roving wind. We first note the wee chaps on some 

 autvmin day; the air is moving in long steady currents in some 

 prevailing direction; they mcnmt to the summit of a high object, 

 lift the abdomen and spin out a long silken thread; this remains 

 attached to the spinnerets and as it continues to lengthen the fric- 

 tion of the air upon the silk becomes greater than the weight of 

 the spider and the tiny fellow is borne gently away on the breeze. 

 Many of them have been seen htmdreds of miles from land by 

 travellers at sea, and this is the surprising part of the story; for 

 man with all his marvelous devices for fiv-ing has hardly been more 

 successful. It was the aeronautic spider that inspired the good 

 gray poet Walt Whitman to write the following poem : 



