shakspeare's knowledge of their habits. 215 



spiders ; some of them constructing nets, and others 

 not doing so. I am led to form this belief, from a 

 passage in the " Midsummer Night's Dream." Tita- 

 nia is reclining on the bank " whereon the wUd thyme 

 blows," and her fairy attendants are obeying her 

 commands, " Sing me now asleep :" — 



" Weaving spiders, come not here ; 

 Hence, ye long-legged spinners, hence. 



Act II. Sc. III. 



By " weaving spiders," must of course be meant 

 some of those which construct nets in the open air ; 

 but the words " long-legged spinners," do not seem 

 to me to be a synonymous expression, but to denote an 

 entirely diiFerent tribe. Of those long-legged, or 

 shepherd spiders (Phalangida), which do not spin 

 nets, but seize their prey by violence, Latredle says — 

 " La plupart vivent a terre, sur les plantes, au has 

 des arbres, et sont tres-agiles ; d'autres se cachent 

 sous la pierre, dans la mousse." * They, of course, 

 would naturally abound in situations similar to that 

 in which Titania is placed. The word " spinner," 

 may justly, I think, be considered as a generic term 

 for spider, and not as indicating that the one to 

 which it is applied actually spins. This inference 

 does not appear to be unnatural or improbable ; — 



"The court awards it, and the law doth give it ;" 



Merchant of Venice, .\ct IV. Sc. 1. 



'■ Le R^gne Animal, tome iii. p. 114, Paris, 1817. 



