VOL. XXII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 589 



his eyes, and between his two short legs. These stings are crooked like a claw, 

 and very much resemble the stings of scorpions, or Indian millepedes. The 

 stings of a spider* have towards the end, and on each side, a little hole, from 

 whence, according to all appearance, when he strikes his enemy, he ejects a 

 liquid matter, which we call poison. 



In fig. 3, ABCDEF &c. show the two instruments that contain the stings; bc 

 the sting as it is cased or laid up; hik the sting extended, and ready to wound; 

 c and I the small holes in each sting, which go quite through ; efg represent 

 the 2 rows of teeth, which serve for a case to the stings, and are covered with 

 hairs; CB the sting when at rest. These two rows of teeth I fancy are given the 

 spider to hold the prey that he has hunted, and struck with his sting, so fast 

 that it cannot be wrested from him. 



When I put two or three of the largest sort of spiders together in the glass, 

 I observed that when they met, they never parted without an engagement, in 

 which one has been sometimes wounded in such a manner, that his body was 

 wet with the blood spilt in the battle, and that he died soon after. I always 

 observed that the lesser fled from the greater ; and when it happened that two 

 of an equal size met together, neither retired, but held one another so fast by 

 their stings, that one would remain dead without once stirring, and so wet 

 with the blood it had lost, as if it had lain some time in the water. I had 

 one spider that was wounded by his antagonist in the thickest part of his 

 leg from whence issued one drop of blood as large as a sand grain ; not 

 being able to use this wounded leg in running away from his enemy, he 

 raised it up on end, and presently after the whole limb-|- fell off from his body ; 

 and I have observed that when they are wounded in the breast, or upper part 

 of their bodies, they always die. 



I used to be of opinion, that when the spider would fasten his thread to any 

 thing, or join one thread to another, that the last spun thread was indued 

 with a sort of slimy or gluey matter, by which it stuck to whatever the spider 

 fastened it, as it happens in silk-worms. But I have found, on the contrary, 

 that the spider cannot fasten his thread, unless he presses with his breech upon 

 the place where his thread is to be fastened, which pressure causes vast numbers 

 of exceedingly fine threads to issue out of his body ; from whence it may be 

 concluded, that as soon as those threads come into the air, they lose their 

 viscosity. 



When I formerly opened or dissected a spider, in order to discover that 



* What Leuwenhoeck here calls stings are more properly termed fangs. 



f This seems to indicate some analogy between the constilution of spiders and crabs, which latter 

 are known to cast off the whole limb when a part is wounded. 



