DEATH IN A ROSE. 259 



find a spider of a bright yellow color, it is the Misu- 

 meta, Yiata, or flower spider. 



It is commonly of a bright yellow, perhaps va- 

 ried with darker markings, but it seems either like 

 the chamelion, and much more than the chamelion, to 

 have the power of adapting its color to its surround- 

 ings, the petals of the flower it adopts for its nest ; 

 or individuals of the same species are very differ- 

 ently colored, and seek flowers to correspond ; for what- 

 ever blossom serves them for a home matches their 

 hue, be it purple, yellow, white, or pink. 



Mrs. Mary Treat, in her little book, My Garden 

 Pets, gives an account of one of these spiders, who, 

 hiding in the heart of a rose, was so nearly the same 

 shade of color as the flower as to make it difiicult 

 to distinguish her from the petals of the flower. 

 When the rose faded she moved into another. 



Mrs. Treat first saw the spider in July, and lived 

 in the same rose for three weeks, after which she 

 took up her abode in a bright red tea rose whose sta- 

 mens were more numerous and of a brighter yellow 

 than those of the flowers she had left, and attracted a 

 greater number of insect visitors. She at once went 

 to the center of the rose, but, as if observing the 

 stamens there were of a much deeper yellow than her 

 body, which contrasted with the bright red of the 

 surrounding petals near, now easily seen, she became 

 restless and soon returned to her first lodgings, the 

 color of whose furnishings better matched her com- 

 plexion. 



She spins no web, but depends entirely upon her 



