75 
_ The jYataridi!^ ts' Cunipaidvii. 
US even in this fonn defieieneies from 
l)erfeetion are not to be thought of, and 
genuine admiration will always pre¬ 
clude the possibility of criticism. 
Stuffed Spiders. 
When it comes to a real live, energet¬ 
ic, ugly, vicious,poisonous spider. South¬ 
ern Califoj'iiia can enter prize animals 
at any fair. The most [)recious troph¬ 
ies the tourists bears away from this 
coast are, in all probability, the neat 
cards decorated with these monsters of 
the insect world. Every one in famil¬ 
iar with the trap door and nest of this 
cunning but ugly creation,and ot which 
strange little habitations every adope 
ranch is full. So densely populated 
with these beautifully lined tunnels 
are some of the sunny, quiet valleys 
among the foot hills, that close inspec¬ 
tion will reveal their almost invisible 
trap doors hardly a foot apart. Yet, 
in spite of this, hai’dly a living animal 
will be seen. There is a legitimate de¬ 
mand for prepared^ specimens, both at 
wholesale and retail. When lirst 
brought in they are deprived of what 
life is left in their bodies lyy poisonous 
fumes or other application of poison. 
After the taxidermist has made sure 
they are quite dead—a wise precaution 
—he cuts them open on the under side 
and, removing the loose matter there¬ 
from, carefulh’ stu'ffs them with cotton. 
This stuffing process is quite a delicate 
operation, and requires no little knack 
to perform neatly and successfully, 
without injuring the animal, and bring¬ 
ing it back to its nominal shape and 
size. A humming-bird would seem to 
be about as small an object as could 
easily be put through this painstaking- 
operation, let alone an insect even of 
the size of a tarantula. This havinc- 
O 
been completed, the spider is placed 
upon a board and i)roperly held in po¬ 
sition by pins, one through the body 
'and one in each foot, and set in the sun 
to dry. 
The sale of them in Santa Barbara 
is carried on both at wholesale and re¬ 
tail, several parties carrying on the 
business, the supply seeming never to 
crowd the demand. In spite of their 
great numbers, few instances occur 
where people have ever been bitten by 
them, the tarantulas generally being- 
more anxious than the other party to 
get out of the way. 
Sounding Crater Lake. 
A [)arty sent out by the geological 
survey, under command of Capt. Clar¬ 
ence E. Dutton, of the United States 
army, has succeeded in reaching and 
making a complete survey of Crater 
Lake, in Oregon, a body of water whose 
shores, with the possible exception of 
one point on the south, have never been 
touched by the feet of white men. The 
party’s boats were hauled a hundred 
miles by mule teams, dragged b_y a de- 
tad of soldiers up the snow-clad sides 
of the range which surrounds the lake 
and lowered by ropes to the water 900 
feet below. One hundred and sixt^' 
soundings were made, the result of 
which show the general character of 
the lake bottom. Two large submerg¬ 
ed cinder cones were found, respective¬ 
ly 800 and 1200 feet high, the rest of 
the bottom being Hat. Captain Dutton 
believes this to be the deepest bod}' of 
fresh water found on the continent. 
The greatest depth attained by the 
sounding- was 2,005 feet. 
