A YOUNG NATURALIST. 



355 



set hurriedly to work to repair the involuntary damage I 

 had committed. 



" Where does the thread come from ?" asked Lucien ; 

 " it is so thin that I can scarcely see it." 



" From four reservoirs situated at the lower part of the 

 spider's abdomen, and filled with a gummy matter which 

 becomes solid as soon as it is exposed to the air. These 

 reservoirs are pierced with about a thousand holes, from 

 each of which proceeds a thread invisible to the naked eye, 

 for it takes a thousand of them to form the thread the spi- 

 der is now spinning." 



" How sorry I am now that I hadn't collected more of 

 these curious insects ! Some we have met with were very 

 curious." 



" In the first place," I replied, " spiders are not insects ; 

 they have both heart and lungs, but insects breathe through 

 air-pipes.* Added to this, insects have antennae, and un- 

 dergo metamorphoses, which is not the case with the spi- 

 der. You must recollect, too, that the spider is akin to 

 the scorpion." 



" Yes ; but scorpions don't know how to spin." 



" Well, all spiders do not possess this art. One of the 

 species you were looking at just now lives on plants, and 

 would be much embarrassed if it happened to fall into the 

 web of its spinning sister ; added to which, it would run no 

 small risk of being devoured." 



" Will spiders eat one another ?" 



" Without the least scruple, and scorpions do the same. 

 It is, in fact, a family vice." 



" I am not at all astonished, then, that the whole family 

 are so ugly." 



* The air-pipes are two vessels, one on each side, extending the whole 

 length of the body, provided with branches and ramifications. They serve 

 for the reception and distribution of the air. 



