130 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



without suffering much inconvenience. Generally, the Scorpion 

 was dead in a few minutes after the wound was inflicted. 



Many of the true spiders are among the burrowers, and, even 

 in our own country, it is possible to see a sandy bank studded 

 with their silk-lined tunnels. 



There is such a bank that skirts a fir -wood near my house, 

 the material being the loosest possible sandstone, scarcely hard 

 enough in any place to resist a pinch between the fingers and 

 thumb. About an inch or two above the soil, this sandstone is 

 quite excavated by the spiders, and as the sandy sides of their 

 tunnels would fall in were they not supported in some manner, 

 every tunnel accordingly is lined by a coating of tough web- 

 bing, very strong, very elastic, very porous, and yet not suffering 

 one particle of sand to pass through its interstices. From the 

 opening of each barrow a web is spread, looking very much like 

 a casting-net, with a hole through its middle. From this, again, 

 radiate a number of separate threads, which extend to a consid- 

 erable distance from the entrance. 



At the very bottom of its silken tunnel the living architect 

 lies concealed, its sensitive feet resting on the web, so that it is 

 enabled to perceive the approach of the smallest insect that cross- 

 es the spot which it has so elaborately fortified. It is curious to 

 watch the various insects that are caught by different species of 

 spiders. The common garden spider {Epeira diademd) enjoys the 

 greatest variety of diet, and the water spider, of which "we shall 

 see something in a future page, is also capable of varying its food 

 to a considerable extent. The Btirrowing Spiders, however, of 

 which there are several species, are much restricted in their diet, 

 the chief food that is found in their webs consisting of small bee- 

 tles and midges. These spiders belong to the family Agelenidse. 



One of the best, if not indeed the very best, examples of the 

 British burrowing Arachnida is the remarkable species Atypus 

 Sulzeri, a creature which is so rare as to have received no English 

 name. It is a small species, not half an inch in length, but it is a 

 curiously-constructed being ; and were it made on a larger scale, 

 would be a really formidable species. Its jaws are long, sharply 

 pointed, and remarkably stout at their bases — so stout, indeed, 

 that, but for a remarkable adaptation of structure, it would not 

 be able to see any thing in front 



