314 THE SPIDERS. 



Scheitlin (foe. c#., p. 429), " we see the spider very far up, 

 and we might almost fancy that a small or, indeed, any 

 animal could not climb further." 



Spiders have also received justice from teachers in the 

 earliest times. King Solomon recommended them to his 

 courtiers as a model of industry, skill, prudence, self- 

 restraint and virtue ; and Aristotle, as the oldest naturalist, 

 gave them his full attention. 



The web of the spider, which it spins in the most different 

 places for catching its prey, has attracted most notice, and 

 it has been regarded, like the cells of the bee, as the result 

 of a peculiar inborn and instinctive artistic impulse. But 

 far more even than the bee-cells does the spider-web differ 

 and change with every variety of circumstance and position. 

 Each species of spider or, we may say, each individual 

 spider, follows its own peculiar plan in forming its web, and 

 knows how to make it so as to suit the place, or to adapt it 

 to circumstances. While the cross-spider spins the well- 

 known and much admired wheel-shaped web and, hangs it 

 perpendicularly, the sack-spider makes flat purse-shaped hori- 

 zontally hanging nets, the threads of which run irregularly 

 through each other and in the depth is a little bag for the 

 reception of the maker. The famous Malmignatto of Corsica, 

 Sardinia and a part of the Italian mainlands, only makes 

 single threads from stones and posts haunted by large 

 insects. Some build horizontal, some perpendicular nets. 

 Garden-spiders spin threads from the ground to projecting 

 stones, and catch in these no flying but only running and 

 jumping insects. The species belonging to the genus Scytodes 

 weave their strong horizontal webs behind into a narrow 

 tube serving as a hiding-place, and spin radiating threads 

 from its opening. Many species do not spin any webs, but 

 prefer to catch their prey in a shorter fashion by springing 

 and running. They only draw thread from their spinnerets, 

 with which all true spiders are provided, for special purposes, 

 as for instance for covering their eggs. The most dreaded 

 amongst them are the tiger-spiders, which run about on 

 walls, and creep slowly towards their victim in cat-like 

 fashion, suddenly pouncing upon it from above with a 

 powerful spring of as much as two inches. Others again, like 

 the large bird-catching or hunting spider \_Mygale avicularia. 

 TR.] lurk in earth-holes, holes in branches, under stones, 



