194 LIFE AND HER CHILDREN. 
more industry for daily bread than these little 
spiders ? and they do it too among many difficulties 
and dangers, for the birds and lizards are watching 
above ground to make a meal of them, and the 
centipedes and other crawling insects creep into 
their holes to attack them. Some of them have 
learned a means of escaping even this danger, for 
they make a second tunnel branching out of the first, 
and build a doorway between the two so that they 
can retreat into the second passage in case of attack, 
and setting their back against the door baffle the 
intruder. 
So in the air and on and under the earth, the 
spiders spin their webs, and since they must try 
every means of gaining a living in this struggling 
world, there are some, such as the wolf-spiders, which, 
instead of spinning webs and waiting for their prey 
to come to them, search for it among the low bushes 
and leaves and grass, and use their spinners chiefly 
for letting themselves drop from a height, or for spin- 
ning their cocoons, and lining the holes in the walls 
where they retire for their winter sleep. You may 
find these running about in the woods and on heaths, 
and if you catch them about June you will find 
each one carrying a snowy-white ball under her body. 
This is her cocoon, containing about a hundred 
eggs, and if you try to take it away she will fight 
for it as courageously as any human mother. I 
took away one three times from a mother on Keston 
Common last summer, and each time she seized it 
again, and went off gaily with it at last, none the 
worse for the struggle. 
Then there are the leaping-spiders, which pounce 
