400 



AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



The above facts, uncovering as they do so hard a destiny impending 

 over every stage of aranead life, might well awake sympathy in the breast 

 of the most pronounced spider hater. To those who know the usefulness 

 to man of the much enduring race, and view its destruction from the 

 standpoint of human disadvantage, the facts are melancholy enough. But 

 after all there seems a judicial fitness in the order of things which ap- 

 points avengers from the midst of the insect world against the chief de- 

 stroyer of the insect hosts. Seeing, therefore, that some check is required 

 upon the excessive increase of spiders, we may regard their relation to 

 the Hymenoptera with some complacency from the view point of natural 

 justice. 



FIG. 339. Nest of Vireo noveborocensis woven together, with bands and threads 

 of plundered spider webs. 



. ix. 



In speaking of the enemies of the spider we have thus far omitted 

 one of the most determined and destructive man himself. But it will be 



observed that I have been writing of the natural enemies of 

 Foolishly S pid ers> aru } m mv opinion man cannot reasonably be classed 

 ,, among these. His hostility to the various families of the spider 



world is without reason not only, but is against reason. It is an 

 example of indulgence in a prejudice which has been long fostered by 



