124 DAN BEARD'S ANIMAL BOOK 



by some young men with these creatures. It seems 

 that one of them, not knowing the solitary habits 

 of the spider, and the fierce manner it has of re- 

 senting intrusion by any, member of its own race, 

 attempted to collect a number of the various kinds 

 to be found in the woods near my camp and keep 

 them together. 



The interesting time came when a job lot of 

 spiders had been put in confinement together, and 

 it was evident that every mother's son of them 

 looked upon every other one as his mortal foe, I 

 say "his" but the truth is a number of these pug- 

 nacious creatures were females, the matter of sex, 

 however, seemed to make little difference in their 

 treatment of each other. There was one great big 

 hairy old lady spider who had an exceedingly bad 

 temper. She was a wood spider and when caught 

 she was bearing a large white cocoon or silken bag 

 filled with her precious babies. By means of a 

 stick she had been 



SEPARATED FROM HER BAG OF BABIES 



and her grief did not tend to soften her temper; 

 in fact she was so ugly, brave, and vicious that she 

 would jump at one's hand if it was brought near 

 her. She, however, remained in one corner while 

 the other spiders sparred for a good lead by which 

 they might take advantage of each other. There 

 were a number of deaths in the box before night- 

 fall, but the hairy old wood spider took no part in 

 the fights What she did at night we can only 



