V :..:;. A PERSECUTED RACE 



the facts related in it are familiar everyday knowledge to 

 thousands of people, while all of them are well authenticated. 

 It is the story of the trap-door spiders, which are not only 

 the cleverest representatives of a talented race, but occupy 

 an important position in the very front rank of Nature's 

 engineers, architects, inventors, and craftsmen. 



Spiders of all sorts have many enemies which possess 

 enormous advantages over them in respect of either strength 

 or agility, or both combined : enemies with wings, swift in 

 movement and able to retreat where their opponent cannot 

 follow them; enemies with stings deadly as the terrible 

 urari-poisoned arrow, watchful, merciless, quick to attack ; 

 enemies clad in an impenetrable coat of mail, against which 

 the spider's weapons are powerless, whilst the spider's own 

 body is soft and vulnerable. But the spiders are themselves 

 hunters and trappers, expert as any, and the exigencies of 

 their existence make it necessary for them to capture prey 

 which has many physical advantages on its side. 



These difficulties and dangers have been met by a multi- 

 tude of clever contrivances, and if invention and skill are to 

 be regarded as some sort of index of intellectual develop- 

 ment, it is a little startling to realize how far the spiders 

 are in advance of our near relations, the man-like apes. 



The family of spiders is, we have good reason to believe, 

 a very ancient one ; it is spread far and wide over the earth, 

 and it is not surprising to find that, with some fundamental 

 characters in common, various branches of the family have 

 developed special activities, and that some excel in one 

 direction and some in another. What is truly astonishing 

 is the skill they exhibit in solving difficult problems, and the 

 highly complex character of their undertakings. 



Amongst them all, none are more intensely interesting 

 than the trap-door spiders, which belong to the tribe known 



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