1 6 Woodside. 



some are very beautiful, nevertheless, in their varying 

 lustre of opal and green reflections. "Diurnal eyes," a 

 celebrated Trench naturalist called these lovely organs, but 

 it appears to be a somewhat fanciful appellation. There are 

 many other interesting things about spiders' eyes, not the 

 least of which are the wonderful excrescences upon which 

 they are sometimes borne. 



Here, on this piece of old fence, you will observe that in 

 almost every protected nook and cranny a female spider has 

 laid her eggs. How well she protected and covered them 

 with silk when she laid them ! These webs are mostly 

 empty ; the little aerial spiders we noticed just now have 

 escaped from some of them. Here is a rolled-up leaf on the 

 bank, carefully sewn together ! As you pick it, a spider runs 

 out from one end of the tube, and when you open it you find 

 within a little mass of pale, flesh-coloured eggs, protected by 

 a silken covering. We have disturbed her in her work ; 

 but one cannot help admiring the instinct which teaches her 

 thus to protect her helpless eggs. 



We have lingered some time over the spiders, but now we 

 will step out again. To the right, a footpath across the 

 fields leads past wooded knolls and leafy coppices to Shorne. 

 To the left the wood is dense, and the trees in many places 

 entirely overshadow the road. Presently we come to a 

 fence, which runs through the wood at right angles to the 

 road, and here the undergrowth disappears. Across gentle 

 undulating sweeps, dotted, here thickly, there more spar- 

 ingly, with massive oaks and gnarled hawthorns, with 

 sweeping chestnuts and majestic ash trees, the whole backed 

 by thick dense woods, we get our first view of Cobham 

 Park. Yonder is a herd of deer, half hidden amongst the old 



