






The Spinner Family 
Now this door, when closed, so closely 
resembles the surrounding soil that 
you could walk directly over it a 
dozen times without ever seeing it. 
Sometimes the lady of the house 
fastens her door open by means of 
threads. ‘Then she sits at the en- 
trance and watches for stray sects. 
If she is rewarded by seeing an ant 
or a beetle wandering by she rushes 
out, captures it, and carries it down 
into her subterranean dining room, 
where she feasts upon it at her leisure. 
If no insects come near her dwell- 
ing, this Spinner, like our black runner, 
starts out on a hunting expedition, not 
returning till she has found something 
to satisfy her hunger. 
The Tarantulas make their homes 
in silk-lined tunnels or in crevices 
under stones or leaves. Now and 
then one sets up its housekeeping in 
a bunch of bananas that has been left 
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