214 GOSSAMER 



and that they have neither grown nor shrunk since 

 they left the cocoon and became perfect insects. This 

 applies to every species of insect — to the gorgeous 

 Malayan butterfly Ornithoptera, measuring seven inches 

 across its expanded wings, as well as to the minutest 

 midge that ever caused you to use impious verbs and 

 adjectives.' 



'How about spiders?' demands the critic. 'I am 

 certain I have seen young broods of small spiders.' 



'Nothing more likely; but spiders are not insects. 

 They are arachnids, an intermediate between insects 

 and crustaceans. A spider is more nearly akin to a 

 crab than to a cockroach. It is true that spiders have 

 segmented bodies ; but they have eight legs instead of 

 an insect's six, and they do not pass through the meta- 

 morphoses imposed upon insects.' 



Spiders are responsible for the phenomenon of 

 ' gossamer ' — those myriad threads of extreme tenuity 

 which float through the air in incalculable numbers on 

 calm autumn mornings and form a glistening mist 

 on miles of grass and other herbage. Gossamer has 

 been attributed by some naturalists to the agency of 

 the spinning mites, Tetranychince, of which perhaps 

 the most easily recognised is the so-called red spider, 

 T. telarius. Fortunately this mischievous little creature 

 does not abound in anything approaching the swarms 

 necessary to produce the phenomenon in question, 

 which has now been ascertained to be the work of 

 true spiders, the young brood being wafted about 

 and dispersed by means of the threads which they 

 eject from their 'prentice spinnerets. Dr. A. E. 



