242 EVENINGS AT THE MICEOSCOrE. 



in particular the hammer-like form of the modified an- 

 tennae, which bend abruptly downwards, and have 

 pincer-tips. These are highly curious, and you may 

 examine them at your leisure ; but for the present we 

 will return to our Spiders. 



Ever since those mythic times when Arachne con- 

 tended with Minerva for supremacy in needle-work, 

 and was changed, for her pains, into a spider, our little 

 spinners have been famous {Spider = ©pinne) for their 

 matchless achievements in thread. And still their in- 

 dustrious art is plied everywhere around us — in our 

 chambers, in our windows, in our cellars, in our walls, 

 in our gardens, in waste and desert places, and even 

 under water. But you shall hear what Professor Owen 

 says on the degree and mode in which Spiders exercise 

 their singular secreting faculty, which " varies con 

 siderably in the different species. Some, as the Clui- 

 ioncB, line with silk a conical or cylindrical retreat, 

 formed, perhaps, of a coiled-up leaf, and having an 

 outlet at both extremities, from one of which may issue 

 threads to entrap their prey. Others, as the Segestrim, 

 fabricate a silken burrow of five or six inches in length, 

 in the cleft of an old wall. The Mygale cementaria 

 lines a subterraneous burrow with the same substance, 

 and manufactures a close-fitting trap-door of cemented 

 earth, lined with silk, and so attached to the entry of 

 the burrow as to fall down and cover it by its own 

 weight, and which the inmate can keep close shut by 

 means of strong attached threads. 



" The arrangement of Spiders by M. "Walckenaer 

 into families, characterised by their habits, places the 

 principal varieties of their webs in a very concise point 

 of view. 



