UNDER THE MAPLES 



The trap-door sooner or later wears out at the 

 hinge, and is then discarded and a new door manu- 

 factured. We saw many nests with the old door 

 lying near the entrance. The door is made of 

 several layers of silk and clay, and is a substantial 

 affair. 



The spider families all have the gift of genius. 

 Of what ingenious devices and arts are they mas- 

 ters! How wide their range! They spin, they 

 delve, they jump, they fly. They are the original 

 spinners. They have probably been on their job 

 since carboniferous times, many millions of years 

 before man took up the art. And they can spin a 

 thread so fine that science makes the astonishing 

 statement that it would take four millions of them 

 to make a thread the caliber of one of the hairs of 

 our head — a degree of delicacy to which man can 

 never hope to attain. 



Trap-doors usually mean surprises and strata- 

 gems, secrets and betrayals, and this species of the 

 arachnids is proficient in all these things. 



The adobe soil on the Pacific coast is as well fitted 

 to the purposes of this spider as if it had been made 

 for her special use. But, as in all such cases, the 

 soil was not made for her, but she is adapted to it. 

 It is radically unlike any soil on the Atlantic coast 

 — the soil for canons and the rectangular water- 

 courses, and for the trap-door spider. It is a tough, 

 fine-grained homogeneous soil, and when dry does 



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