Facts and Thoughts about Spiders, 1 79 
It is somewhat strange that although, where 
other tribes of living creatures are concerned,.! am 
something of a naturalist, spiders I have always 
observed and admired in a non-scientific spirit, and 
this must be my excuse for mentioning the habits 
of some spiders without giving their specific names 
—an omission always vexing to the severely-teclmi- 
cal naturalist. They have ministered to the love of 
the beautiful, the grotesque, and the marvellous in 
me ; but I have never 'collected a spider, and if I 
wished "to preserve one should not know how to do 
it. I have been familiar with the face ” of these 
monsters so long that I have even learnt to love 
them ; and I believe that if Emerson rightly predicts 
that spiders are amongst the things to be expelled 
from earth by the perfected man of the f uture,- then 
a great charm and element of interest will be* lost 
to nature. Though loving them, I cannot, of 
course, feel the same degree of affection towards all 
the members of so various a famil}^ The fairy 
gossamer, scarce seen, a creature of wind and sun- 
shine; the gem-like Epeira in the centre of its 
starry web ; even the terrestrial Salticus, with its 
puma-like strategy, certainly appeal more to our 
sesthetic feelings than does the slow heavy Mygale, 
looking at a distance of twenty yards away, as he 
approaches you, like a gigantic cockroach mounted 
on stilts. The rash fury with which the female 
wolf-spider defends her young is very admirable ; 
but the admiration she excites is mingled whth . other 
feelings when we remember that the brave mother 
proves to her consort a cruel and cannibal spouse. 
Possibly my affection for spiders is due in a great 
N 2 
