162 
USES OF THE SPIDER. 
thoroughly cleansed, for the smallest remains are conscientiously 
devoured. 
The great spiders of the Antilles, without piquing themselves on 
accomplishing a work of purification so terrible and so complete, labour 
nevertheless very industriously to secure the cleanliness of human 
habitations. They will not suffer any disgusting insect to exist. They 
are excellent servants—much cleaner than the slaves. Therefore men 
value them, and purchase them as indispensable domestics. Markets 
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exist where spiders are regularly bought and sold. 
In Siberia, the spider enjoys the consideration to which it can 
everywhere put forward so many claims. That region of the farthest 
North, whose very brief summer is not the less infested with gnats and 
flies, finds a benefactor in the useful insect which industriously hunts the 
swarms for man’s advantage. Its consummate prudence, its superior 
ability, its prescience of atmospheric variations and climatic phases, 
have so exalted the idea which the Siberians have formed of it, that 
many of their tribes refer the creation of the world to a gigantic spider. 
