258 CURIOUS HOMES ANP THEIE TENANTS. 



she goes along gathering up the old web in front 

 and spinning a new one behind her, she rolls the old 

 one into a ball and sits and chews it a long time with 

 evident pleasure. 



The spinnerets, which give out the sticky fluid 

 that becomes silken threads on exposure to the air, 

 consist of three pairs of little projections on the 

 hinder part of the body, each beset with a great num- 

 ber of what look like tine hairs or bristles, but which 

 are found under the microscope to be double-jointed 

 tubes ending in fine-drawn points, from each of which 

 escape extremely small drops of a liquid which, being 

 drawn out, dries into delicate silken lines a thousand 

 times as fine as a hair, which being united together 

 form a thread of from four to eight thousandths of 

 an inch in diameter. It is this that gi\'eB spiders' silk 

 such strength ; for a cord is strong in proportion to 

 the number of filaments that compose it. 



DEATH IN A ROSE. 



THE SPIDER AND THE BUTTERFLY. 



Spiders, we know, are in general dingy and dull of 

 hue, grayish black or blackish gray, or brown and 

 dull buff or yellow, with perhaps more or less ob- 

 scure markings, but there is a family of these crea- 

 tures that for a special purpose put on brighter col- 

 ors. If on looking into the heart of an oxeye daisy, 

 or in a sun flower, perhaps, or upi)n golden-rod, we 



