NATURE'S GEOMETRICIANS 



SPIDERS form good subjects for a rainy-day 

 study, and two hours spent in a neglected 

 garret watching these clever little beings will 

 often arouse such interest that we shall be glad 

 to devote many days of sunshine to observing 

 those species which hunt and build, and live their 

 lives in the open fields. There is no insect in the 

 world with more than six legs, and as a spider 

 has eight he is therefore thrown out of the com- 

 pany of butterflies, beetles, and wasps and finds 

 himself in a strange assemblage. Even to his 

 nearest relatives he bears little resemblance, for 

 when we realise that scorpions and horseshoe 

 crabs must call him cousin, we perceive that his is 

 indeed an aberrant bough on the tree of creation. 



Leaving behind the old-fashioned horseshoe 

 crabs to feel their way slowly over the bottom of 

 the sea, the spiders have won for themselves on 

 land a place high above the mites, ticks, and 

 daddy-long-legs, and in their high development 

 and intricate powers of resource they yield not 

 even to the ants and bees. 



Nature has provided spiders with an organ 

 filled always with liquid which, on being exposed 

 to the air, hardens, and can be drawn out into 

 the slender threads we know as cobweb. The silk- 



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