SPIDER-EATING SHEEP 



spider's part, for it enables it to spread out its legs as it 

 must do before pouncing upon its prey. The tube is princi- 

 pally composed of fragments of dry wood fastened together 

 with clayey earth, and so artistically disposed one above the 

 other that they form a scaffolding having the shape of a 

 hollow cylinder, and its strength is greatly added to by a 

 silk lining which the spider warps over the inner surface and 

 continues over the whole of the inside of the burrow." ' The 

 outwork, or tower, is not found in all the nests, but when 

 present it is no doubt very serviceable in preventing loose 

 sand and other rubbish from being blown into the burrow. 

 Besides chips of wood, the spider often uses pine-needles and 

 bits of lichen for building its rampart, fastening them together 

 with silk. In winter it makes a cover or lid of the same 

 materials, and remains snugly indoors until the cold weather 

 is past. 



In the lower part of the illustration opposite page 30 

 you will see a tarantula represented as it springs from its 

 turret to pounce upon a large field cricket. According to 

 Baglivi, the peasants sometimes lure tarantulas from their 

 holes by blowing into a haulm of oats and thus imitating 

 the buzzing of an insect. Without resorting to some such 

 strategy it is a difficult matter to secure these spiders, for it 

 is not easy to catch them by digging them out of their 

 burrows. Nevertheless they are not immune from danger, 

 in spite of their ingenuity, for M. de Walckenaer states that 

 in the steppes of Asiatic Russia a species of black sheep 

 unearths tarantulas and eats them ! 



In the Natural History Museum at South Kensington 

 you may see a great block of earth containing four wonder- 

 ful burrows made by spiders called Santaremia pocockii, a 

 South American species common in the neighbourhood of 

 Pard and Santarem. This spider, which is a great brown 



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