THE SNARE- WE A VERS. 181 
Durrows under his own protecting stone, rarely having 
any other with him. Even in summer it is only 
at night that they seek companionship; while in the 
winter they burrow deep in the ground and sleep 
till the warmth comes round again. 
While the spider is the industrious and skilful 
snare-weaver of its class, the scorpion is the fierce 
bandit, knowing well the power of its sting and the 
terror it inspires ; and like the bandit it lives in a 
state of perpetual warfare, flinging its tail over its 
head and extending its claws at the least alarm, and 
either fighting till death or running rapidly back- 
wards facing its foe, till it reaches a place of safety. 
And in like manner as the robber's wife, shut out from 
the companionship of the rest of womankind, will 
love and defend her children with wild devotion, so 
the female scorpion will carry her young brood for 
many weeks after they are born, clustering all over 
her back, till they are able to fight for themselves. 
We must not, however, pause long over these 
solitary and dangerous creatures, for a far more 
interesting group of the spider class flourishes here 
in our own country, where all who wish may study 
its members. 
Instead, therefore, of lingering in the warm south, 
let us return to England, where, in the cracks of 
some old paling, or under the leaves of a shrub on a 
summer's evening after some days of thunder and 
rain, we may find a common garden spider * lying 
crumpled up as if half dead. Her web, long ago 
destroyed by the wind and the rain, has left her no 
means of getting food for many long hours^ and she 
* Epeira diadema. 
13 
