02 ANIMAL LIFE 



dew which they laboriously secrete. Bees so much 

 prefer the dew to the trouble of securing honey that 

 in some years hives are a failure. Wasps both sop 

 up fruit juice and devour other insects, killing them 

 with a sting and storing them in their burrows. 



The higher Arachnids, the spiders and scorpions, 

 contrast with their degenerate allies, the mites and 

 ticks, by their large brain and complex structure, which 

 bear witness to their high place among invertebrates ; 

 and this conclusion is borne out by their nourishment 

 and the means they adopt in obtaining it. If to feed 

 by sucking the juices of a captured organism is a sign 

 of superiority, spiders and scorpions are sure of a high 

 place, for their methods show exquisite adaptation to 

 secure this end. 



So exclusively is the whole class of Arachnids 

 a race of sucking animals, that it has lost the jaws 

 which all but the most modified insects retain. In their 

 place these animals possess a pair of small sharp 

 nippers, within which lies a poison-bag, so that every 

 nip injects some venom into the prey. The second 

 pair of limbs is usually leg-like, but in spiders it so 

 far differs from the four remaining pairs of legs that 

 its base is expanded to form a jaw-like process which 

 helps to hold, though not to chew, the food. In the 

 scorpion the second limbs form a pair of claws, and 

 in the mites a sheath, within which the first pair or 

 piercing organs can be held. The act of sucking is 

 performed not through a proboscis as in insects ; the 

 tiny mouth is applied direct to a wound in the prey, 



