NATURAL HISTORY. 
mi 
remains for weeks and even months upon the watch, with- 
out ever catching a single fly ; for the spider, like most other 
insects, is surprisingly patientof hunger. It sometimes hap- 
pens that too strong a fly strikes itself against the web, and 
thus, instead of being caught, tears the net to pieces. In 
general, however, the butterfly or the hornet, when they 
touch the web, fly oft' again, and the spider seems no way 
disposed to interrupt their retreat. The large blue-bottle-fly, 
the ichneumon-fly, and the common meat-fly, seem to be 
its favourite game. When one of these strike into the toils, 
the spider is instantly seen alert and watchful at the mouth 
of its hole, careful to observe whether the fly be completely 
secured. If that be the case, the spider walks leisurely for- 
ward, seizes itsprev, and instantly kills it by instilling a ve- 
nomous juice into the wound it makes. If, however, the fly 
be not fast, the spider patiently waits, without appearing, 
until its prey has fatigued itself by its struggles to obtain 
its liberty ; lor if the ravager should appear in all his terrors, 
while the prey is but hall' involved, a desperate effort might 
give it force enough to get free. If the spider has fasted 
for a long time, it then drags the fly immediately into its 
hole and devours it; but if there has been plenty of game, 
and the animal be no way pressed by hunger, it then gives 
the fly two or three turns in its web, so as completely to se- 
cure it, and there leaves it impotently to struggle until the 
little tyrant comes to its appetite. 
It has been the opinion of some philosophers, that the spi- 
der was in itself both male and female ; but Lister has been 
able to distinguish the sexes, and to perceive that the males 
were much less than the females. 
The female generally lays from nineliundred to a thousand 
eggs in a season. These eggs are large or small in propor- 
tion to the size of the animal that produces them. In some 
they arc as large as a grain of mustard-seed ; in others, they 
are scarcely visible. The female never begins to lay till she 
is two years old. 
When the number of eggs which the spider has brought 
forth have remained for an hour or two to dry after exclusion, 
the little animal then prepares to make them a bag, where 
they are to be hatched, until they leave the shell. For this 
purpose, she spins a web four or five times stronger than that 
made for catching flies ; and, besides, lines it on the inside 
with down, which she plucks from her own breast. This bag, 
when completed, is as thick as paper, is smooth within side, 
but rougher without. Within this they deposit their eggs; 
and it is almost incredible to relate the concern and industry 
