4 



pose of a balloon in raising them from the ground and carrying them 

 floating a long distance in the air. In constructing this buoyant 

 means of transportation, the spider does it at peculiar times of the 

 day, and in peculiar positions. Selecting some place where the heated 

 air is rising from the ground or from the side of a fence, it turns up 

 its abdomen and allows the rising current of air to carry upward the 

 thread which is being made, and when this thread is of sufficient 

 length for its buoyancy to overcome the ^veight of the spider, it floats 

 away with the spider hanging below. 



The spider also constructs cases to hold her eggs and lines them 

 warmly with the finest web. These nests vary greatly in appearance. 

 A common variety, somewhat oval in shape, may be found suspended 

 in barns and sheds. 



The young spider comes from the egg resembling in form the par- 

 ent spider, excej^t that the legs are much shorter in proportion to his 

 relative size, and the palpi appear so large that they look like another 

 pair of legs, as they then are in fact, but they afterward become modi- 

 fied to feelers. 



As the young spider grows it sheds its skin at short intervals of 

 time till it has reached adult size. 



The mother spider, generally so timid, overcomes her fear during 

 the time she has the care of her eggs, and with many spiders the egg- 

 cases are directly cared for by the mother, she oftentimes carrying 

 them about with her or holding on to them and showing the greatest 

 solicitude for their safety. Some species of spiders carry their young 

 on their backs and move about with them. 



The spider has no power of throwing or ejecting its thread to dis- 

 tant objects, as many suppose. When threads are seen stretching from 

 one tree to another, the spider has caused the thread to issue from the 

 spinnerets, and the wind has then caught it and borne it along till 

 finally it gets entangled with some object and in this way the spider is 

 enabled to cross from one point to another. 



These creatures are not so dangerous as many suppose and but very 

 few authenticated cases are known of man having been bitten by 

 these animals; though the larger spiders at the South and in Califor- 

 nia, as the tarantula, for example, can inflict a dangerous wound. 



