ever, press the spinnerets close together, so that but one 
thread appears as it leaves them. The spinning is often 
aided by the hinder pair of legs, either to guide the thread 
or pull it from the spinnerets. We may often see spiders 
walking along with six legs, using the last pair to draw out 
a thread as they go. The long waving threads which catch 
our faces in the fall of the year as we pass along fences 
or among trees, are drawn out in this manner by the spiders 
for no apparent purpose. 
Spiders are said to fly, but, of course, possessing no wings, 
this is impossible. They do, however, throw out large quan¬ 
tities of their silk, until there is a sufficient quantity to float 
their bodies in a gentle wind, and in this manner they are 
carried through the air. The young of many spiders do 
this as a youthful sport, and are often carried high in the 
air. This mostly occurs in September. They may descend from 
a high position by letting themselves down on their threads, 
being able to control their speed and to stop the flow of the 
thread at any time. 
The silk of spiders has been woven into textile fabrics. 
It has been proposed by Professor Wilder that spiders could 
be raised in large numbers, fed in confinement, and milked 
each day for their thread. In this way, it is thought .an 
ounce of thread could be gotten from each spider in a sum¬ 
mer, and as each cocoon of eggs of the spider he intended 
to use contains from 500 to 1,000 eggs, it would be possible 
to obtain a sufficient quantity of thread in a season to manu¬ 
facture some cloth. The thread is smoother and finer than 
that of the silkworm. A single thread is used sometimes in 
the manufacture of delicate astronomical instruments, where 
a light, fine line is desired. Cobweb is a well-known appli¬ 
cation for stopping the flow of blood. 
There is a remarkable difference in the size of male and 
female, sometimes being as great as one to ten ; that is, the 
female may be ten times as large as the male of the same 
species. Stories are told that the female spiders regularly 
eat the males. Such stories are untrue, but have their 
foundation in the fact that the females are nearly always 
much larger than the males and do not allow them in their 
nests. Fighting between the sexes is common, and the males 
frequently lose their lives in these encounters. When the fe- 
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