CHAPTER XXIV 



SPIDERS 



THE spiders run the ants, bees, wasps and other ingenious 

 creatures pretty close in the matter of ingenuity. Much 

 of the ingenuity displayed by insects is the result of their 

 living social lives ; their labours are so divided and organ- 

 ised for the common good that each individual becomes 

 more or less of a specialist. It is somewhat surprising 

 that spiders should be so ingenious, for they are not 

 insects the fact that they possess four pairs of legs 

 instead of three tells us as much ; they are close relatives 

 of the Crustacea, amongst whom ingenuity is at a low ebb. 

 In the main, spiders may be classed among the useful 

 members of the animal kingdom. They are beneficial to 

 mankind in that they kill and devour enormous quantities 

 of insects which, if allowed to survive, would damage 

 crops, etc. Fate alone has saved the spider from 

 becoming a domesticated animal like the silkworm. 



All the spiders possess spinning organs, of which we 

 shall speak presently, though they do not all make use 

 of them, Many spiders spin two kinds of silk, the web 

 silk and the cocoon silk, of which the latter is by far the 

 stronger, and it was thought that this substance could be 

 used as a substitute for the product of the silkworm. 

 Certain articles were actually woven from this silk, but 

 it proved inferior in every way to the silk of the silkworm. 

 This, however, was not the only difficulty. Silkworms are 

 harmless, docile creatures ; spiders are pugnacious and 

 war-like, even cannibalistic, so that it was found almost 

 impossible to keep them in captivity, a necessary pro- 

 ceeding if their silk was to be used commercially. 



In habit the members of the true spider family are very 



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