SPIDERS AND MITES 249 



and on a lower level. The former have their under or 

 concave surface set with teeth (eighteen on each in this 

 example) very regularly cut, like those of a comb, which 

 are minute at the commencement of the series near the 

 base of the claw, and gradually increase in length to the 

 tip. These are doubtless sensible organs of touch, feeling 

 and catching the thread; and they, moreover, act as combs, 

 cleansing their limbs, and probably their webs, from the 

 particles of dust and other extraneous matter which are 

 continually cleaving to them. 



There are Spiders in the sea also. I can show you one 

 which is sufficiently common on the southern shores, 



CLAWS OP SPIDEU. 



sprawling and crawling sluggishly among the filamentous 

 seaweeds and branching flexible zoophytes. Here it is, 

 Nymphon by name. 



Its most prominent characteristic is the excessive slen- 

 derness of all its parts, but especially its eight legs, which 

 are exceedingly lengthened, comprising each eight joints, 

 and no thicker than the finest thread. On the other hand, 

 the body is reduced to a minimum; the abdomen, which 

 in the Spiders and Harvestmen of the land is so bulky as 

 to constitute the chief volume of the animal, is here so 

 minute that you will have some difficulty in finding it at 

 all; it is, in fact, that tiny atom of a point that projects 

 between the hindmost pair of limbs. The thorax, indeed, 

 is a little more developed; but even this has scarcely any 



