












The Spinner Family 
With the mummy firmly grasped in 
her claws, Mrs. Epeira swings clear of 
the web, clambers up to the hub on 
a thread which she has left for that 
purpose, and settles down to enjoy her 
supper. She is not so intent upon her 
eating that she cannot notice the en- 
trance of other insects into her house. 
She scampers first in one direction 
and then in another, securing all the 
intruders, just as she did the first 
one. Some of them she hangs up in 
the dining-room at the centre; others, 
when she has wrapped their mummy- 
cloths around them, she leaves dang- 
ling in the web where they were 
caught. 
Great rents are torn in the pretty 
silken house on which she has spent 
so much pains and labor. She does 
not mind that, for she is such an ex- 
travagant little body that she expects 
to make herself another new house 
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