The Spider. 81 



pin in between them. I think the spider bites with them. 

 They are its mandibles or biting-jaws. I can put the 

 bristle into the mouth just between the mandibles. The 

 spider does not need a large mouth because it only sucks 

 the blood of the insects that it catches. On the under 

 side of the thorax, close behind the mandibles, are the 

 max'l'ae or little jaws (Fig. 4, a). They are not separate 

 appendages, but the flattened first joints of the palpi, 

 which are used in chewing. 



Fie-B. 3 and 4 repreBent the greatly magnified mandibles and 

 maxillae of a commou garden spider, bnt not the one we are stndjing. 



The appendages of the head-thorax are four pairs of 

 legs, one pair of palpi, and one pair of mandibles. 



When a spider bites, the poison is pnnred ont through a tiny 

 hole at the tip of each mandible. The poison sacs are partly in 

 the head and partly in the 

 npppr joints of the man- 

 dibles. 



The abdomen has no ^^I^-C/ Vt?/ 

 appendages but the spin- 

 nerets. In our spiders 

 two of these are long and ^'°- * 



stand out behind the abdomen like two tails (Fig. 1). 

 Most spiders have three pairs of spinnerets shaped like 

 so many knobs. By rubbing one of the hind feet over a 

 spinneret a sticky fluid like white of egg is drawn out 

 of all the little tubes in filaments, which instantly harden 

 in the air. Hundreds of these strands unite to make 

 the spider's thread, so delicate and yet so wonderfully 

 strong. 



Fig. 5 is one of the long spinnerets of onr spider with the tinv 

 spinning-tabes, sj), on the nnder side of the last joint. Fig. 6 

 (hows tlie end if h spider's leg with the two-toothed claws, o, and 

 the middle claw, m, without teeth, which is naed as a thnmb in 

 holding and gniding the thread. These claws, as well ai the 

 toothed hairs, t, and all the other hairs on the Irg, are so highly, 



