The Life of the Spider 



surpasses it when, on patient study, the main 

 features of its supreme perfection stand re- 

 vealed. \A'hat refinement of art for a mess of 

 Flies ! Nowhere, in the whole animal king- 

 dom, has the need to eat inspired a more cun- 

 ning industry. If the reader will meditate 

 upon the description that follows, he will cer- 

 tainly share my admiration. 



First of all, we must vritness the making of 

 the net ; we must see it constructed and see it 

 again and again, for the plan of such a com- 

 plex work can only be grasped in fragments. 

 To-day, observation will give us one detail; 

 to-morrow, it will give us a second, suggesting 

 fresh points of view; as our visits multiply, 

 a new fact is each time added to the sum total 

 of the acquired data, confirming those which 

 come before or directing our thoughts along 

 unsuspected paths. 



The snow-ball rolling over the carpet of 

 white grows enormous, however scanty each 

 fresh layer be. Even so with truth in obsert-a- 

 tional science : it is built up of trifles patiently 

 gathered together. And, while the collecting 

 of these trifles means that the student of 

 Spider industry must not be chan.- of his time, 

 at least it involves no distant and speculative 

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