66 STRANGE DWELLINGS. 



repeated seven or eight times, and always with the same results, 

 so that a further repetition would have been but a useless 

 cruelty. The heat given out by the ashes was very trifling, and 

 not equal to that which is caused by the noontide sun, a tem- 

 perature which the Scorpion certainly does not like, but which 

 it can endure without suffering much inconvenience. Gene- 

 rally, the Scorpion was dead in a few minutes after the wound 

 was inflicted. 



Many of the true spiders are among the burro wers, and, even 

 in our own country, it is possible to see a sandy bank studded 

 with their silk-Hned tunnels. 



There is such a bank that skirts a fir-wood near my house, 

 the material being the loosest possible sandstone, scarcely hard 

 enough in any place to resist a pinch between the fingers and 

 thumb. About an inch or two above the soil, this sandstone is 

 quite excavated by the spiders, and as the sandy sides of their 

 tunnels would fall in were they not supported in some manner, 

 every tunnel is carefully lined by a coating of tough webbing, 

 very strong, very elastic, very porous, and yet not suflering 

 one particle of sand to pass through its interstices. From the 

 opening of each burrow a web is spread, looking very much 

 like a casting net, with a hole through its middle. From this 

 again, radiate a number of separate threads, which extend to 

 a considerable distance from the entrance. 



At the very bottom of its silken tunnel the living architect 

 lies concealed, its sensitive feet resting on the web, so that it is 

 enabled to perceive the approach of the smallest insect that 

 crosses the spot which it has so elaborately fortified. It is 

 curious to watch the various insects that are caught by different 

 species of spiders. The common garden spider {Epeira dia- 

 demd) enjoys the greatest variety of diet, and the water spider, 

 of which we shall see something in a future page, is also capable 

 of varying its food to a considerable extent. The Burrowing 

 Spiders, however, of which there are several species, are much 

 restricted in their diet, the chief food that is found in their webs 

 consisting of small beetles and midges. These spiders belong 

 to the family Agelenidae. 



