OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY 17 



as that yellowish Wood Tiger Moth that we had seen 

 conspicuous among the heather as we climbed the hill. 

 For the spider's cocoon is made by the mother-spider 

 as a silken bag for her eggs and her young ones, 

 whereas the cocoons which caterpillars make are like 

 sleeping-sacks, within which they pass through the 

 great change that turns them into butterflies or moths. 

 The mother-spider is very careful of her silk bag with 

 its precious contents. If you try to take it away, she 

 resists; if you take it away, she searches for it. Most 

 spiders are very shortsighted, and it seems to be by 

 smell that she ferrets about for her lost treasure. 

 She may be deceived, for a little while at least, by a 

 pith-ball of suitable size which has been rubbed against 

 the cocoon. She is a very devoted mother, though 

 gossips say she is a rather cross wife. There is 

 another spider here (Epeira cornuta) that fixes its 

 large cocoon to the heather by means of a loose web of 

 threads and keeps guard over it, or, strictly speaking, 

 under it. We also found that morning a very inter- 

 esting, somewhat roughly made horizontal sheet on 

 which very young spiders were running about. When 

 we jostled it the little creatures huddled together in 

 a heap. When we touched the heap the constituents 

 promptly dropped down among the heather. 



As we were idly peeling off some short moss from 

 a boulder within reach we disclosed three or four 

 chalky-white insects which would hardly move at all, 

 though they waved their legs in a lazy sort of way 

 when we turned them upside down. The biggest of 

 them was about half the size of a threepenny bit, and it 

 had behind it a quaint shovel-like trailer, also bright 

 white. We were so curious that we put the little 



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