Spiders 



spiders are more or less prepared for a hostile reception 

 on the part of their wives and the thighs of their front 

 legs are accordingly armed with spurs, with which to hold 

 back and render powerless the female's fangs. 



Specimens of the spider family may be found every- 

 where. They spin their orbs on our garden fences, their 

 cobwebs in our rooms ; they swim in our ponds or construct 

 rafts upon which they float down our rivers ; they excavate 

 their marvellous tunnels, closed with trapdoors, though 

 we must travel to sunnier climes to see these creatures at 

 their work in plenty, despite the fact that there is a British 

 trapdoor-spider. 



In general their silk and the uses they make thereof is 

 the most interesting part about spiders. Let us therefore try 

 to discover something about their means of making silk 

 before we pass to the discussion of the uses to which they 

 apply it. The method of producing silk exhibited by the 

 silkworm is quite different to its method of production in 

 the spiders. In both cases the silk issues in a semi-liquid 

 state from the creature's body and almost instantaneously 

 hardens in the air, and there ends the similarity between 

 the two cases. 



The silk is given off by the silkworm from its mouth ; 

 in the spiders, the silk comes from special spinning organs 

 called spinnerets, situated on the under sides of their 

 abdomens. The number of spinnerets varies in the 

 different species of spider ; in some cases, again, they are 

 hidden from view when the spider is seen from above ; 

 in other cases they project from the tail end of the animal. 



It is obviously impossible to describe the spinning 

 organs of all the species of spider, so we will take the 

 common garden-spider, often called the cross-spider, by 

 reason of the white cross it bears on its back, as our 

 example. It has the advantage of possessing well- 

 developed and numerous spinnerets ; moreover, it is 

 common and therefore easily observed. No spider is 

 better endowed for the production of silk than the garden- 



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