VI. 



SpfDers. 



IN a corner of the kitchen window a very large 

 specimen of the domestic spider has been engaged for 

 a day or two past in constructing her domicile. I say 

 "her," because, with whatever success in human life 

 the female sex may fight the battle for equality with 

 men, the question of woman's rights was solved in 

 spider-life ages and ages ago. Your male spider is 

 but a "puir body," as Northerners say when they 

 express their sense of the inferiority of an acquaint- 

 ance. Like certain human units (of the male sex) who 

 are too much given to haunting their clubs, the male 

 spiders are rarely seen " at home." 



"The " sex is paramount in spider society, and, if any 

 other argument were wanting to prove that " the grey 

 mare is the better horse " among these spinners and 

 weavers of lower life, one might find it in the fact that 

 the ladies vastly exceed in size their husbands and 

 male friends. There is yet another trait in the domestic 

 life of the spider class which reveals a very curious 

 phase of lower social history. Everybody has heard 

 of those savage tribes (locality, South Seas, I believe) 

 whose members deem it a bounden duty to brain their 

 aged parents, and thus save the old folk from the 

 trouble and bather of living on ; while the economic 



