HOW A SPIDER LIFTED A SNAKE 



NE of the most interesting books in natural his- 

 tory is a work on " Insect Architecture," by 

 Rennie. But if the architecture of insect 

 homes is wonderful, the engineering displayed 

 by these creatures is equally marvellous. Long before man 

 had thought of the saw, the saw-fly had used the same tool, 

 made after the same fashion, and used in the same way for 

 the purpose of making slits in the branches of trees so that 

 she might have a secure place in which to deposit her 

 eggs. The carpenter bee, with only the tools which nature 

 has given her, cuts a round hole, the full diameter of her 

 body, through thick boards, and so makes a tunnel by which 

 she can have a safe retreat, in which to rear her young. 

 The tumble-bug, without derrick or machinery, rolls over 

 large masses of dirt many times her own weight, and the 

 sexton beetle will, in a few hours, bury beneath the ground 

 the carcass of a comparatively large animal. All these feats 

 require a degree of instinct which in a reasoning creature 

 would be called engineering skill, but none of them are as 

 wonderful as the feats performed by the spider. This ex- 

 traordinary little animal has the faculty of propelling her 

 threads directly against the wind, and by means of her 

 slender cords she can haul up and suspend bodies which 

 are many times her own weight. 



Some years ago a paragraph went the rounds of the 

 papers in which it was said that a spider had suspended an 

 unfortunate mouse, raising it up from the ground, and 



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