52 MORE POT-POURRI 



eject, with its glutinous end, into the air till it reaches 

 some branch or stone or corner of leaf, to which it adheres 

 instantly. When this happens the spider turns quickly 

 round and pulls, like any British tar, with his two front 

 claws till the fairy rope is tight. Then he fixes it and 

 can travel along it, and that is the first stage in the 

 ' weaving,' as the old language puts it, of his beautiful web. 

 Spiders belong to a kingdom ruled by women, and the 

 female eats up the male if she finds him troublesome and 

 unsatisfactory. There is a very good book about British 

 spiders by E. F. Staveley (L. Eeeve & Co.), which would 

 tell all that anyone might want to know about these 

 insects. The first page illustrates spiders' heads, with the 

 varying numbers of eyes the different kinds possess. 



1 Gleanings in Natural History,' by Edward Jesse, is 

 a book I can indeed recommend to all lovers of natural 

 history. The first edition is dated ' Hampton Court, 

 1842.' For all of us who live near Hampton Court the 

 book has a double interest, as he was Surveyor of Her 

 Majesty's Parks and Palaces, and lived there, and many 

 of his anecdotes are connected with the neighbourhood. 

 His opening words are : ' One of the chief objects I had 

 in writing the following pages was to portray the 

 character of animals, and to endeavour to excite more 

 kindly feelings towards them.' It is a kind of half- 

 way book between Gilbert White and the scientific 

 writings of the present day ; and all natural instincts and 

 facts are accounted for in what the most ignorant, since 

 the days of Darwin, would describe as the unscientific 

 language belonging to that date. To my mind, that in 

 no way detracts from the interest of its shrewd observa- 

 tions on the facts of Nature. 



To name another book in this place, ' Country 

 Pleasures : Chronicle of a Year chiefly in a Garden,' 

 by George Milner, has been lately republished and 



